중국의 편작(扁鵲)과 그리스의 히포크라테스(Hippocrates)의 건강학과 철학

Health Science and Philosophy of Chinese Banque and Greek Hippocrates

Medical doctors play an important role in helping us maintain our health, and in treating diseases when they occur. This thesis aims at comparing key health and philosophy principles of the Chinese Banque and the Greek Hippocrates of the 4th and 5th centuries BC with the objective to determine the usefulness of their respective teachings today. Banque was a medical doctor in China’s “Warring States” period. He opposed healing diseases through shamanism and developed a unique diagnostic method by combining medical practice and traditional folk medicine. “Banque Nanjing” is best known for describing health and medical issues in his books in a concise and systematic question-and-answer format, addressing difficult medical terms, diagnostic methods, and the determination of prognosis. The essence of his principles of health management consists in listening to one’s body when something feels wrong, making active efforts to identify what the problem could be and then treating the disease at an early stage. Patients were advised to give up any resistance to a cure and accept a medical doctor’s rational and scientific healing methods. Banque emphasized the importance of doctors’ help in preventing rather than treating diseases. As in modern medicine this emphasis on prevention is significant. To achieve longevity, Banque recommended giving up bad habits, letting go of greed and emptying one’s mind through meditation. Hippocrates believed that to be able to treat a disease the respective cause first had to be identified, facilitating selection of appropriate methods to help restore a state of well-balanced body fluids. His treatment of the various diseases consists in enhancing the body’s natural ability to heal itself. He therefore avoided meaningless medications and focused on changes in lifestyle, especially those related to diet. The “Corpus Hippocrates” is a collection of sixty medical papers that are known to have been written and compiled by several authors including Hippocrates himself. In his key medical philosophy, he pointed to the inherent nature of the healing process that is not due to any form of magic or the will of god. His method of closely observing the patient’s condition and recording his/her response to the respective treatment chosen constituted a substantial contribution to helping establish scientific medicine in contrast to mystic or unscientific medicine.