my hippocratic oath//presidential valentines

Notes from the notebook of yours truly:

Neuropsych, 1/31/2016

Clinical and Lesion Studies: Relating Brain Damage to Abnormal Behavior:

Clinical and lesion studies focus on identifying brain effects (specifically, brain lesion effects) on behavior. 

Clinical studies look at cases in humans, do not inflict harm; lesion studies look at cases in animals after manipulating brain tissue.

            
Notable Clinical studies: Medical Observations

                        (e.g., Hippocrates, Galen, Broca, Wernicke)

Hippocrates (460-380 BC) believed the “brain hypothesis” – that the organ that influences all senses and movement is in fact the brain.

-He was one of the first to deny epilepsy as proof of demonic possession.

-Hippocrates was also the first to note that the brain processes information and controls the body contralaterally.

Learning about "key" historical figures is like testing your faith in iconography. When individuals are wrapped in accolades, deemed the harbingers of some great and no-longer-to-be-questioned discovery, I wonder: was Hippocrates, a Greek physician, “father of medicine,” really the FIRST, or the ONLY ONE, to think these things?

Probably none of which was written by him??!?!

I tend to need some insight beyond this computer's Apple dictionary to define my own understanding. PBS is a good, corroborating source:

While Hippocrates, the so-called father of medicine, lived in the early 5th century B.C., the famous oath that bears his name emerged a century later. No one knows who first penned it.

Often I'm afraid that what I learn is lying to me. Sometimes the syllabus seems to gloss over, simplify things indefinitely. I hear and see that these people did these things and are these things and webbed some sophisticated finding into society's modern network of knowledge. 

But I find it difficult to think that someone was the sole "discoverer" of anything. And when every textbook tells you so, it's like doubting your own birth certificate as proof of your existence.

We really just need a face, someone to look to; a body to wear the cape of some concept. Because if we said this was just "Medicine's Oath," what possible version of ourselves would be available to believe in?

Valentine's day is bordered by Presidential birthdays.

Coincidence??!?!?!

(this person loves iconography)