[Hippocrates, father of semiology and medical deontology].
Elaborated 24 centuries ago, Hippocrate's and his school's works are considerable. They concern all aspects of medicine, surgery and even obstetrics, tackled by three approaches: clinical observation by constitution for each patient of what can be considered as the ancestor of the current medical file and by use of clinical signs still in application in modern semeiology; the Oath, basis of benevolence ethic, still taken nowadays but in an actualized form by future medical doctors; humoral theory which proposes a physiopathological concept of diseases and deduces a therapeutical approach still in use until the end of 19th century, by lack of sufficient knowledge about organs function and origin of diseases. It consists in an amalgam of archaic concepts, elaborated by presocratic philosophers about matter's structure transposed to body fluids and presented in a pseudocoherent form. Current concepts of diseases, especially role of pathogens render it obsolete.
Dupont
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Service d'Immunologie-Hématologie-Transfusion, Hôpital Erasme, ULB, Bruxelles.
D003933:Diagnosis; D004992:Ethics, Medical / Q000266:history*; D000076145:Greece, Ancient; D049690:History, Ancient