Hippocrates- Positive Health and Techne

The legendary Hippocrates’ philosophy and thought has become increasingly shrouded in our modern approach to health. Many who are interested in health and wellness may know his important aphorisms about food being medicine and disease beginning in the gut.

?Others may be vaguely familiar with the important Hippocratic Oath that used to be routinely recited by medical students but has lost its luster and appeal in age of presentism and the increasing lurch to dogmatic and Marxist tendencies in medical education.

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Positive Health

?A better place to start with the thought and ideas of Hippocrates and his school of followers is to understand his important concept of Positive Health-

?Positive health requires a knowledge of man’s primary constitution and of the powers of various foods. But eating alone is not enough for health. There must be exercise. The combination of these two makes regimen,

?proper attention is given to the season of the year, the changes of the winds, the age of the individual, and the situation of his home.

?If there is any deficiency in food or exercise, the body will fall sick.

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The late great Dr. Owsei Temkin, Professor Emeritus in the History of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University wrote of this Hippocratic approach:

?Human beings were here seen in cosmic and geographic content; disease in general had a nature, and so had every single disease; food, drink, and medicines could change illness for better or worse, and the individual’s and age and pursuits were factors not be overlooked.

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Techne

?Such a holistic approach is one we all should strive to emulate -be it a clinician or citizen scientist. But how to best achieve this? The modern health enthusiast has wisely been unsatisfied with the disease care system and the one size fits all model, and attempts to improve one’s health by “biohacking” https://www.healthline.com/health/biohacking. Contrary to many of my medical colleagues I applaud the efforts from these erstwhile novice patients who have taken more ownership in the outcome of their health.

Although “biohacking” is an adequate term, a better approach is to apply “techne”.?Dr. Temkin explains how the Greeks spoke of medicine as a techne, a combination of theory, practice, and craftsmanship, for which English has no equivalent.

?He goes on to say that Hippocratic physicians often placed more trust in experience and learning rather than just in natural philosophy or the ‘science’ of their day. These physicians and also athletes would refine the art of techne by stimulating and sharpening their intellect and refining their methods through a “craftsmanlike manner” of trial and error.

?In On Craft and the Human Condition, the writer and thinker Cal Newport states:

?As I then I elaborate (in his book Deep Work ?https://www.amazon.com/Deep-Work-Focused-Success-Distracted/dp/1455586692 ) there’s something about mastery that resonates with the human condition. When we observe someone successfully apply a hard-won skill — an athlete, a writer, a leader, an adventurer, a musician — we become rapt, our admiration unmistakable. We also, crucially, tend to feel a moment of inspiration in which we experience a compulsion to pursue something noteworthy ourselves.

The conclusion here being that the incremental but upward road to mastery — whether it’s in some professional endeavor or hobby — is fundamental. ?https://www.calnewport.com/blog/2020/03/19/on-craft-and-the-human-condition/

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Modern personalized and integrative medicine has it’s roots in these Hippocratic beliefs of Positive Health and would do well to understand it’s cultural and historical legacy first espoused in the 5th C ?B.C. by the great doctor from Cos whose renown was already well known by his younger contemporaries Plato and Aristotle. We can achieve excellence or arete by pushing oneself up the road of mastery through the application of techne, a personalized craftsman approach that goes deeper than mere biohacking.