Hippocrates: A Rational Profession 460–370 BCE

The Greeks did not develop an accurate knowledge of human anatomy and pathology. Dissection of human bodies did not occur except for a brief time at Alexandria in the third century b.c. The Greeks had no concept of nosology. They felt that disease was caused by an imbalance of the four humors of the body; blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm. Developments on these three fronts—anatomy, pathology, and the nosology of disease—did not begin to occur until the thirteenth century.