Cnidos v. Cos.

SET in the azure Aegean sea is the island of Cos. Not far to the east is a promontory on which was once the city of Cnidos. Both were inhabited by Greeks, yet even as in our own country Greek did not always agree with Greek, and differing solutions to the same problem often led to considerable variation in opinion. Yet here in these two small land areas took origin some of the very basic concepts of our profession. Here in the fifth century B.C. flourished the two most important medical schools of ancient times. It may be that Cnidos was slightly senior to Cos, but there is little evidence available. Superficially there was much resemblance between the two schools. The basic medical knowledge of the times was common to both. Their anatomy was based on animal dissection and possibly also on their examination of injuries sustained in war and by accident. Their organisation was similar and whilst in Cos Hippocrates ruled and taught, in Cnidos Euryphon held much the same position. Yet in spite of the similarities in structure and organisation each developed his teaching methods and philosophy along such differing, yet entirely rational, lines that one can scarcely find a greater contrast in any 'period in the development of our profession. Most of what we know about the Cnidians is contained in the criticisms of the Cnidian sentences or maxims put-forward by Hippocrates in his book Regimen in Acute Diseases. He alleges that the Cnidians attached too little importance to Prognosis: that their treatment was faulty and that they carried classification of diseases to the extreme. It is clear that their treatment was influenced by Egyptian medicine, and that like the Egyptians they-believed that many of the disease producing toxins could be eliminated by ,purging. They had little knowledge of pathology, and had little symipathy with the ideas of 'general pathology' promulgated on the island of Cos. So too they were oppolsed