Every year when a new class of medical school students graduate, they stand and together recite the Hippocratic oath. Within the oath that we avow is “Whenever a doctor cannot do good, he must be kept from doing harm.”
But, taking a look at some of his quotes, wise old Hippocrates thought in terms of a natural or holistic approach to healing individuals. Take a look and enjoy.
“If we could give every individual the right amount of nourishment and exercise, not too little and not too much, we would have found the safest way to health.”
“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.“
“Walking is man’s best medicine”.
“Natural forces within us are the true healers of disease”.
“Cure sometimes, treat often, comfort always.”
“It’s far more important to know what person the disease has than what disease the person has.”
“To do nothing is also a good remedy.”
“It is more important to know what sort of person has a disease than to know what sort of disease a person has.”
“Everything in excess is opposed to nature.”
After reading these quotes, the natural question that arises is “have we travelled too far down the rabbit hole to return to our senses?” By this I mean the following. With electronic health record systems and expenses, along with Big Pharma, medical practice has gotten away from real treatment- the healing hand.
People want to speak with their physicians in more than 5 minute increments and want to see their faces, not the back of their heads while vital information is plugged into computers. People are healed by those that care and are caring.
We as healers, took a Hippocratic oath when we first started out. Let’s start trying to be practical and more like Hippocrates in our thinking.
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