From myth to philosophy, the cradle of evolving medical thought and ethics in the classical antiquity

Background At the beginning, medicine in the Western world was based on a theocratic-magical doctrine with religious beliefs and mythical conflicts. Subsequently, in the Greek world begins the relationship between rhetoric, philosophy and medicine with mutual influences and contributions. This relationship is due to the assumption that, as the philosophical logos acts on the soul, so the medicine with its techniques and its remedies acts on the body. However, the relationship between philosophy and medicine will begin with the pre-socratics as they try to find standard patterns/rules that can be successfully applied for the explanation of the whole. To achieve this, they cannot resort to the use of reasoned production methods or to complete and perfect induction. Methodology We performed an extensive bibliographical research to investigate the evolutionary process of medical thought from late antiquity to modern age. For this purpose we extracted data from electronic data banks and ancient books from public libraries and private collections. Results/Discussion Despite the individual differences of the representatives of the philosophical currents, their unity is verified by a common component in their way of thinking. Thus, they initiate a change in the way they look at and interpret the world, a change characterized by a persistent search for universal truth and knowledge per se with a distinct intention of rationality. This knowledge now meets the doctors at that era and Hippocrates is the first to take away the part of the theocratic medical doctrine, making it rational and therefore science. Conclusion There is an extremely interesting aspect of Aristotle's relationship with medicine. In his attempt to construct the method of his ethical philosophy, Aristotle took medicine as his model. However, this correlation of Medicine with Philosophy had occurred before Aristotle with Plato. In fact, we perceive the analogy between the work of the doctor who takes care of the body and that of the philosopher whose work is the care of the soul in Gorgias and Phaedrus. The philosopher Plato as an idealist puts the idea of good, like all other ideas, in a transcendental world instead Aristotle builds his moral philosophy on his interest in man, and consequently on “human good”. Thus, medicine reborn as a science from philosophy and therefore the physician must be at first a philosopher to be an epistemologist.