“Healing is a matter of time, but it is sometimes also a matter of art and opportunity.”
– Hippocrates
Few people have had such an impact on the world that an entire time period has been named after them. Pericles of Athens (495-429 BC) was one of them. He was a general, a statesman, and an orator, who built the Athenian Empire. He sponsored programs in art, education, and science that made Greece the intellectual center of the world. He birthed democracy and many of today’s social and political sciences. The city had such wealth and power his reign is named the "Age of Pericles."
Most historians credit Pericles’ greatest triumph as birthing modern democracy. But he made a far greater impact on the world that remains overlooked and under-appreciated. If it had not been for his support for the arts and sciences, the work of Hippocrates, the father of medicine, might never have taken place. His Hippocratic School of Medicine distinguished the art of healing as a scientific discipline uniquely different from all others. He transited primitive experiment into factual principles.
Hippocrates entrenched the ethics and standards for physicians and healers throughout the ages.
The work of Hippocrates freed medicine from the shackles of superstition. He dispelled the belief that healing was a mystic act from the ancient gods. He was the apotheosis of a perfect physician. He was altruistic, wise, caring, honest and dedicated. We praise him when our physicians take his oath of homage to care for us: “the Hippocratic Oath.” Once they’ve committed to the highest ethics in the world we know when we are infirmed we are able to put our lives in the hands of our doctors.
From the time our settlers set foot on American soil, our primary care physicians have anchored our communities. Since our founding they have been more vital to our nation than any politician.
They cultivated us since conception and enjoined our mothers while incubating the embryos that housed our developing organs. They were our advocates to insure we were nourished fetuses so our bodies and souls were consecrated on delivery into the world. They treated our broken bones, measles and cuts. They kissed away our minor bruises with a hug. They taught us the facts of life and how to care for our mates. They sheltered us through adulthood, and were there for us during every serious ailment. And they will comfort us during the final fleeting moments of our mortal lives.
Country doctors traveled miles to treat ailing pioneers. Once they were secure they scurried off to the next farm or township. They braved inclement weather to birth infants in log cabins and prairie wagons. They made medications and antidotes in their homes. They were lucky if they got paid but they did what had to be done to save lives. They were the Lord’s gift to this adolescent developing nation.
“A wise man should consider that health is the greatest of human blessings.”
– Hippocrates
During the Civil War, doctors worked in squalid, retched camps with little or no medicine. They ran battlefield clinics, dodging cannon balls and musket pellets. They treated mortal wounds, infections and diseases with no concern for their personal safety. They struggled to resuscitate lives of Yanks and Rebs on all sides of this conflict. Nobody was their enemy. Every doctor was a surgeon and a savior. They were the greatest heroes that fought for us so we could reconstruct our broken union.
By the Industrial Revolution, science gave medicine a new place in society. During the Great Wars, doctors had much better tools to work with. But with more sophisticated weaponry there were more casualties. Once again they meet the challenge. And this continued after the war as new ailments evolved from battlefield fatigue and chemical warfare. Our doctors developed new methods to treat returning heroes with ailments that were more challenging than they ever imagined.
“It's far more important to know what person the disease has than what disease the person has.”
– Hippocrates
Unfortunately today, the importance of our primary care physician is unheeded until we need them. Yet they are more essential to preserving humankind than the world’s greatest armies. When the COVID-19 virus was declared a pandemic and everyone except “frontline workers” was told to stay home to avoid spreading this deadly disease. Doctors across the globe became the most essential gear to keep the world in motion. Our PCP is the first and last person we see if we have COVID-19.
In Wuhan, China, Dr. Li Wenliang, who discovered the virus, was the first to be taken by it. Doctors at Wuhan Hospital have worked overtime to treat patients and some have died from it, while others are dying of fatigue and exhaustion. Doctors in Italy are so overwhelmed with patients they are left to choose which ones to treat since there aren’t enough respirators for each patient. It was recently announced that doctors who perish from COVID-19 will be honored as martyrs; the same as saints and soldiers.
“Life is short, the art is long, opportunity fleeting, judgment is difficult."
– Hippocrates
We praise soldiers, firefighters, and police officers for running “towards danger,” it is time we praise our PCPs for what they are currently doing for the world. They are the heroes who have to face this threat head-on. They are exposed to COVID-19 everyday, while most of us are in the sanctity and serenity of our homes isolated from the world. Our PCPs, the very ones we think least about until we are ill, and get paid the least, remain on the front lines during this pandemic, working for us.
Hippocrates wrote, “Extreme remedies are very appropriate for extreme diseases.” Our PCPs are our first line of defense throughout our lives. They are the ones who rescue us when they discover the maladies that require treatment from specialists. They are our first responders and are forced to turn their heads from the wrath of malpractice if a human life is at sake; even though it could cost them their career. Their love, care and fidelity ushers us into the world. They are our saving grace on earth, and they comfort us while we are leaving the mortal world behind for a new life in eternity.
Today, even the most powerful people in our society are at the mercy of a virus that knows no rank and no title. Although some politicians and businesses have risen to the occasion, during this time of crisis this fight is being waged by frontline responders, our local PCPs and their devoted medical staffs. They are risking their lives to test and treat the ill, and to write prescriptions to save people’s lives. People around the globe rely on them to make the most critical decisions they will ever make.
Hippocrates wrote, “Diagnosis is not the end, but the beginning.” He believed medicine isn’t magic, and a patient’s fate lies in the hands of the physician. Medicine was created when sickness meant inevitable death. It was devised by those who tried to find a way to prolong and improve our lives. They knew the fears of disease, the loneliness of old age, and the comfort and serenity a patient is seeking who turns to them for life altering decisions. They realized medicine is more than treating diseased organs. It was about compassion, care and improving lives--even if they couldn’t cure us.
“The physician must be able to tell the antecedents two things; know the present, and foretell the future and have two special objects in view, to do good – and to do no harm.”
– Hippocrates
* This article was originally published here
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