By Eugenia Manolidou
The advance of Artificial Intelligence into our daily lives is already transforming Medicine, offering new tools for diagnosis, research and the processing of knowledge.
Yet there remains a core of medical practice that cannot be replaced: the relationship between doctor and patient. For this reason, the Greek language and Greek philosophy acquire particular significance today, since they remind us that Medicine, before every technical application, is an art of speech, judgement and care.
In the Greek tradition, Medicine was connected from an early stage with language, philosophy and education, because the physician is called upon to know the body, to understand the patient and to use language with precision. The phrase attributed to Hippocrates, “Οὐκ ἔνι ἰατρικὴν εἰδέναι, ὅστις μὴ οἶδεν ὃ τί ἐστιν ἄνθρωπος” – “it is not possible to know Medicine if one does not know what the human being is” – summarises a view that remains profoundly relevant: medical knowledge reaches its completion in the understanding of the human being as a unity of body and soul.
This understanding was already reflected in the Asclepieia, where healing included rest, diet, exercise, music and theatre. At Epidaurus, the theatre forms part of the wider Sanctuary of Asclepius; at Pergamon, the Asclepieion included a theatre, a library, a sacred spring and places of treatment; in Messene, the Asclepieion stood close to spaces of religious, civic and theatrical life. The presence of theatre near places of healing reveals a civilisation that understood health as an equilibrium of body and soul.
Aristotle, defining tragedy in the Poetics, writes that it is “μίμησις πράξεως σπουδαίας καὶ τελείας” – the imitation of a noble and complete action – which, “δι᾽ ἐλέου καὶ φόβου”, through pity and fear, brings about “τῶν τοιούτων παθημάτων κάθαρσιν”, the catharsis of such emotions. In modern terms, tragedy gives form to fear, pity and sympathy through language and dramatic structure, enabling the human being to process suffering, recognise it and experience release. Catharsis here signifies removal, emotional discharge and the restoration of balance. Comedy, which followed within the context of the dramatic competitions, also worked through laughter as another form of psychic release. In this coexistence of fear and relief, tears and laughter, one can discern a deep understanding of human nature, which modern science now approaches through its own methods.
The same wisdom runs through medical terminology. The word diet, in the Hippocratic tradition, meant an entire way of life, involving the regulation of food, exercise, rest and daily habits. The Greek word ἀσθένεια (astheneia) denotes the absence of σθένος (sthenos), strength. The word ἀρρώστια (arrhostia) is connected with ῥώμη (rhōmē), bodily vigour, from the ancient verb (ῥώννυμι) rhōnnymi, “to strengthen”. Health itself survives in the everyday Greek greeting γεια (yia), from the ancient imperative ὑγίαινε (hygiainē), “be healthy”. Even in Oncology, the terms benign and malignant correspond in Greek to καλοήθης (kalōēthēs) and κακοήθης (kakoēthēs), words formed from ἦθος (ēthos), meaning character or mode of behaviour, since a tumour is described according to the way it develops: whether it remains contained, or invades surrounding tissues and forms metastases. This is the power of the Greek language: it names, and at the same time it interprets.
This is why Galen insisted that “ἀλλ᾿ ἡμεῖς γε μεγίστην λέξεως ἀρετὴν σαφήνειαν εἶναι πεπεισμένοι” – “we are convinced that the greatest virtue of language is clarity.” In Medicine, clarity of language is a condition of correct thought and responsible action, because the precise term helps the physician to understand the phenomenon more clearly, to communicate more safely with colleagues and to explain with greater responsibility to the patient what concerns him or her. From the clarity of the term we move to the clarity of thought, and from there to the deeper responsibility of the physician towards the suffering human being.
“Ὅτι ὁ ἄριστος ἰατρὸς καὶ φιλόσοφος” – “that the best physician is also a philosopher” – Galen emphasised, summarising a conception of Medicine that goes beyond technical knowledge and presupposes judgement, measure, humanity and an awareness of the psychosomatic unity of the human being. Today, neuroscience and psychoneuroimmunology systematically study the relationship between mental state, chronic stress, the immune system and disease, giving renewed scientific interest to questions that Greek thought had already posed with remarkable clarity: the relation of body and soul, the importance of the way of life, the effect of fear, grief and inner disturbance, and the need for clear communication between doctor and patient.
Of course, healing practices existed before the Greeks, in great ancient civilisations that observed the body, recorded symptoms, used medicines and developed ways of addressing pain. The Greek achievement lies in the fact that Medicine became, through Hippocrates, Galen, Aretaeus and the wider Greek intellectual tradition, a science of the human being. The patient emerged as a person in need of care, trust and understanding. Δίαιτα (díaita, diet) was understood as a way of life, catharsis as the restoration of balance, clarity of language as a condition of scientific responsibility, and the physician as a θεράπων (therapōn), one who is called first of all to know the human being and to care for him, to heal him.
It is characteristic that the ancient Greek verb θεραπεύω (therapeuō) originally means to care for, to serve, to attend to. Because care leads to healing, therapy came to mean the treatment of disease and the restoration of health. Thus, a word that initially denoted devoted care for another human being passed into the language of Medicine and, from there, into international scientific terminology, like so many Greek words that continue to give form and meaning to medical thought.
This great turn profoundly influenced the global medical tradition. In an age of technological precision, the Greek language and Greek philosophy allow us to recognise the deeper origin of Medicine as both science and art, placing the suffering human being at the centre. The Greek contribution lies in the fact that healing was connected with language, clarity, measure, responsibility and care. This inheritance continues to remind us that at the heart of Medicine there always stands the human being who suffers and seeks understanding, trust and care.
This article was inspired by my lecture “The Wisdom of the Greek Language in Medicine”, presented at the two-day scientific conference “Oncology: From Oncogenesis to Therapy” in Thessaloniki. I warmly thank the organisers for their kind invitation and for the opportunity to present, before a scientific audience, the profound relationship between Medicine, the Greek language and philosophy.