Death and Dying in Hippocratic Medicine
Calvin
Last Name Gross
Terminal Degree(s) BA
Title/Position Fellow
Institution/Organization Theology, Medicine, and Culture Initiative at Duke Divinity School
Contemporary medicine is filled with the narrative of a “medicalized death,” where biomedicine controls the practices and norms of dying. In a 2018 study, Teno and colleagues demonstrated that while more and more patients now die outside of the hospital, approximately 20% of patients still die in the hospital, while 29% are admitted to the ICU in the 30 days prior to death (1). It seems that modern medicine is entwined with the dying process. At the same time, modern medicine draws much of its heritage from Hippocratic medicine, which arose in 5th century BC Ancient Greece. Medical school graduates today take oaths based on the original Hippocratic Oath, and references to Hippocrates abound in lectures, essays, and medical literature alike.
Given this, it is surprising that authors have not addressed how Hippocratic medicine approached death. Scholars have examined death in the Greek world at large, but little has been written on how Hippocratic medicine understood death and dying. This paper examines texts of the Hippocratic corpus and demonstrates that the authors have little to say on caring for patients at the end of life or even how to determine when a patient has died. Death is acknowledged and alluded to in a circumspect manner, but it is never discussed systematically; it is always of secondary interest. As a result, I will argue that for Hippocratic physicians, death was seen as a phenomenon which did not primarily reside within medicine’s power. Instead, its role in society was among religion, philosophy, and the arts. In the end, we find ourselves asking if our modern medicalized deaths which differ so much from Hippocratic times prevent us from embracing the spiritual, philosophical, and artistic dimensions of death.
(1) Joan M Teno et al, “Site of Death, Place of Care, and Health Care Transitions Among US Medicare Beneficiaries, 2000-2015.” Journal of the American Medical Association 320, no. 2 (2018): 264-271.
Given this, it is surprising that authors have not addressed how Hippocratic medicine approached death. Scholars have examined death in the Greek world at large, but little has been written on how Hippocratic medicine understood death and dying. This paper examines texts of the Hippocratic corpus and demonstrates that the authors have little to say on caring for patients at the end of life or even how to determine when a patient has died. Death is acknowledged and alluded to in a circumspect manner, but it is never discussed systematically; it is always of secondary interest. As a result, I will argue that for Hippocratic physicians, death was seen as a phenomenon which did not primarily reside within medicine’s power. Instead, its role in society was among religion, philosophy, and the arts. In the end, we find ourselves asking if our modern medicalized deaths which differ so much from Hippocratic times prevent us from embracing the spiritual, philosophical, and artistic dimensions of death.
(1) Joan M Teno et al, “Site of Death, Place of Care, and Health Care Transitions Among US Medicare Beneficiaries, 2000-2015.” Journal of the American Medical Association 320, no. 2 (2018): 264-271.