#WingedWordsWindsday: 2022/08/31 -- Celebrating Ancient & Modern Scientists! :)

 WINGED WORDS WINDSDAY

Compiled by Rob Chappell (@RHCLambengolmo)

Vol. 1, No. 44: August 31, 2022

 

 

Hippocrates, Aristotle, & Maxwell

 

Editor’s Note

This week, in honr of the new academic year, we salute scientific research both ancient and modern, featuring articles about the Classical Greek scientists Hippocrates and Aristotle, along with a poem by the Scottish mathematician, James Clerk Maxwell.

 

“Meet Dr. Hippocrates:

The Father of Western Medicine”

By Rob Chappell, M.A.

Adapted & Condensed from Cursus Honorum VI: 6 (January 2006)

                Hippocrates (ca. 460-380 BCE) is widely regarded as the “Father of Western Medicine” by historians of the medical sciences. He was apprenticed to a physician during his youth and spent most of his life on the Greek island of Kos. There stood the famous temple of Asclepius (the divine patron of medicine and healing in the Olympian pantheon), which attracted countless pilgrims seeking medical help for various illnesses and injuries. Having observed firsthand the medical practices of the temple’s physician-priests, Hippocrates resolved to banish superstition and magic from medicine. In his teaching and practice, he emphasized the role of observation (carefully examining patients) and asking patients detailed questions about their present condition and medical history. His treatments emphasized the need for proper nutrition and exercise and the use of remedies that had a proven record of success. Due to the effectiveness of his scientifically-based treatment methods, Hippocrates’ fame spread rapidly across the Mediterranean world, drawing both patients and would-be apprentices to his school.

                A collection of about sixty treatises on medicine and related subjects, based on Hippocrates’ observations and experiments, was compiled by his students and successors over several generations. These books transmitted Hippocrates’ teachings to future generations and ensured that he would be revered for millennia to come as a brilliant scientist and dedicated physician. The most famous of the Hippocratic treatises is the Hippocratic Oath, which most physicians still take (in one form or another) upon graduation from medical school. The Oath introduced the cardinal precept of the medical profession, “Primum non nocere” (Latin: “First, do no harm”), and it required physicians to guarantee their patients’ confidentiality. Moreover, the Oath sought to stamp out quackery by describing the apprenticeship that medical students must undergo to be qualified to practice medicine professionally and to train their own apprentices in turn.

                Hippocrates is a sterling example of how one scientist can change the world for the better through research, teaching, and writing. His entire lifetime was spent in the service of his fellow human beings, and his wisdom and insight still inspire young people to take up the challenge of improving the human condition through the scientific method that he pioneered.

 

A Hippocratic Webliography

·         http://classics.mit.edu/Browse/browse-Hippocrates.html -- A collection of English translations of the Hippocratic treatises, including the world-famous Oath.

·         https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocrates -- Encyclopedia article about Hippocrates, the “Father of Western Medicine.”

·         https://iep.utm.edu/hippocra/ -- An introductory overview of Hippocrates’ life, teachings, and legacy.

 

“Aristotle: The Master of Those Who Know”

By Rob Chappell, M.A.

Adapted & Condensed from Cursus Honorum VI: 9 (April 2006)

                Before the rise of modern science, what is known today as the scientific enterprise was called “natural philosophy” – that is, “the study of Nature’s wisdom.” One of the foremost “natural philosophers” of Classical Greece was Aristotle (384-322 BCE), whose writings encompass such diverse subjects as physics, astronomy, geosciences, ethics, politics, logic, psychology, biology, rhetoric, and metaphysics. Aristotle was hailed as the “Master of Those Who Know” when European scholars rediscovered his writings and translated them into Latin during the 11^th century. As his writings were disseminated across Europe, he came to be regarded as “THE Philosopher” by his Scholastic admirers at Europe’s leading medieval universities.

                Born in 384 BCE at Stagira in northern Greece, Aristotle journeyed to Athens in his late teens and became a student (and later a teacher) at Plato’s Academy. After Plato’s death in 347 BCE, Aristotle traveled and conducted botanical research with Theophrastus, one of his students. In 343 BCE, Aristotle was invited by King Philip II of Macedon to become the tutor of Philip’s son and heir, Alexander the Great. After Alexander had ascended to the throne of Macedon and started his conquest of the Persian Empire, Aristotle returned to Athens, where he set up his own school of philosophy, the Lyceum. Over the next twelve years, he composed a great number of books on a wide variety of topics (including both the sciences and the humanities) until at last he retired to the Greek island of Euboea, where he died in 322 BCE.

                Aristotle was a keen observer of the natural world. Some of his theories have been disproved since the Scientific Revolution, such as his geocentric model of the Solar System and his belief in the spontaneous generation of living organisms. Nonetheless, he made meticulous observations of both living and nonliving things, and based on those observations, he devised a logically consistent system of scientific classifications that endured for two millennia.

 

“Mine is the first step and therefore a small one, though worked out with much thought and hard labor. You, my readers or hearers of my lectures, if you think I have done as much as can fairly be expected of an initial start, will acknowledge what I have achieved and will pardon what I have left for others to accomplish.” à Aristotle

 

                Aristotle was also interested in what we would call the humanities. His writings on ethics and political science display his deep insights into human nature and the social order. He is often regarded as the first Western literary critic because of his writings on the aesthetics of poetry and rhetoric. Aristotle also ventured into the realm of metaphysics: his reasoned speculations about the nature of ultimate reality have exercised a profound influence on Western philosophy ever since.

 

Resources for Further Exploration:

Aristotle and His World of Ideas

·         http://classics.mit.edu/Browse/browse-Aristotle.html à English Translations of Aristotle’s Works from the Internet Classics Archive

·         https://iep.utm.edu/aristotl/ à Article from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

·         https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle/ à Article from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

 

In this detail from Raphael’s The School of Athens (1509), Aristotle (at right) is pictured with his teacher, Plato (at left). (Image Credit: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons)

 

“A Student’s Evening Hymn”

By James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879)

 

Now no more the slanting rays

With the mountain summits dally,

Now no more in crimson blaze

Evening’s fleecy cloudless rally,

Soon shall Night front off the valley

Sweep that bright yet earthly haze,

And the stars most musically

Move in endless rounds of praise.

 

While the world is growing dim,

And the Sun is slow descending

Past the far horizon’s rim,

Earth's low sky to heaven extending,

Let my feeble earth-notes, blending

With the songs of cherubim,

Through the same expanse ascending,

Thus renew my evening hymn.

 

Thou that fills our waiting eyes

With the food of contemplation,

Setting in thy darkened skies

Signs of infinite creation,

Grant to nightly meditation

What the toilsome day denies —

Teach me in this earthly station

Heavenly Truth to realize.

 

Give me wisdom so to use

These brief hours of thoughtful leisure,

That I may no instant lose

In mere meditative pleasure,

But with strictest justice measure

All the ends my life pursues,

Lies to crush and truths to treasure,

Wrong to shun and Right to choose.

 

Then, when unexpected Sleep,

O’er my long-closed eyelids stealing,

Opens up that lower deep

Where Existence has no feeling,

May sweet Calm, my languor healing,

Lend note strength at dawn to reap

All that Shadows, world-concealing,

For the bold enquirer keep.

 

Through the creatures Thou hast made

Show the brightness of Thy glory,

Be eternal Truth displayed

In their substance transitory,

Till green Earth and Ocean hoary,

Massy rock and tender blade

Tell the same unending story —

"We are Truth in Form arrayed."

 

When to study I retire,

And from books of ancient sages

Glean fresh sparks of buried fire

Lurking in their ample pages —

While the task my mind engages

Let old words new truths inspire —

Truths that to all after-ages

Prompt the Thoughts that never tire.

 

Yet if, led by shadows fair

I have uttered words of folly,

Let the kind absorbing air

Stifle every sound unholy.

So when Saints with Angels lowly

Join in heaven’s unceasing prayer,

Mine as certainly, though slowly,

May ascend and mingle there.

 

Teach me so Thy works to read

That my faith — new strength accruing, —

May from world to world proceed,

Wisdom's fruitful search pursuing;

Till, thy truth my mind imbuing,

I proclaim the Eternal Creed,

Oft the glorious theme renewing

God our Lord is God indeed.

 

Give me love aright to trace

Thine to everything created,

Preaching to a ransomed race

By Thy mercy renovated,

Till with all thy fulness sated

I behold thee face to face

And with Ardor unabated

Sing the glories of thy grace.