Sometimes connections may be obscure and tentative but have undeniable echoes all the same. They can also seem to unwittingly travel along parallel lines.
Take the island of Kos in the Dodecanese, lying just four kilometres off the Turkish coast. Once home to a thriving Jewish community, it also has a 230 year old mosque that's still in use today. None of which is unusual for a part of the world that not only nudges the eastern fringes of Europe but once lay along ancient Hellenic trade routes, with links to the Orient and beyond.
Take the island of Kos in the Dodecanese, lying just four kilometres off the Turkish coast. Once home to a thriving Jewish community, it also has a 230 year old mosque that's still in use today. None of which is unusual for a part of the world that not only nudges the eastern fringes of Europe but once lay along ancient Hellenic trade routes, with links to the Orient and beyond.
Kos also has an ace up it's sleeve, to put it very mildly. Just along from the mosque stands a tree which according to legend marks the spot where Hippocrates first taught the art of medicine a mere 2,500 years ago. This culturally rich island could therefore claim to be the birthplace of Western medicine. Quite an assertion and one that is widely accepted.
Hippocrates' pupils documented his numerous teachings in what is now known as the Hippocratic Corpus. It shows that, among other things, he was the first person to assert that diseases had natural causes and were not due to any supernatural forces. They resulted from our environment, diet etc. not from the disfavour of gods, an incredibly 'modern' perspective.
What is also fascinating and something that invites endless conjecture is that at roughly the same time and 10,000 kilometres to the east, Chinese physicians were busy documenting their own findings. One of the major texts that resulted from this activity was called Huang-di Nei'Jing or The Yellow Emperor's Inner Canon.
Similar in some ways to the Corpus, it describes a series of conversations between the mythical Emperor and some of his ministers. It is presented in two parts: the Suwen which forms the comprehensive basis of traditional Chinese medicine, and the Lingshu which specifically focuses on acupuncture.
One other undeniable similarity that it shares with the Corpus is the fact that it too rejects the influence of spirits and the use of magic in medical practice which had hitherto been de rigueur.
There are surely reasons for such changes in direction. No-one knows categorically why medical practitioners at that time and in different parts of the globe were starting to turn their backs on superstition as a source of diagnosis. It may be coincidental that these new-found beliefs were concurrently being taken in the same field, but people travelled for trade on a vast scale and ideas will have moved around with them.
As always, the headspring of such profoundly innovative new ways of thinking will ultimately remain a mystery. It can't however be discounted that once the idea took flight it sent shockwaves across the world.
Hippocrates' pupils documented his numerous teachings in what is now known as the Hippocratic Corpus. It shows that, among other things, he was the first person to assert that diseases had natural causes and were not due to any supernatural forces. They resulted from our environment, diet etc. not from the disfavour of gods, an incredibly 'modern' perspective.
Similar in some ways to the Corpus, it describes a series of conversations between the mythical Emperor and some of his ministers. It is presented in two parts: the Suwen which forms the comprehensive basis of traditional Chinese medicine, and the Lingshu which specifically focuses on acupuncture.
One other undeniable similarity that it shares with the Corpus is the fact that it too rejects the influence of spirits and the use of magic in medical practice which had hitherto been de rigueur.
There are surely reasons for such changes in direction. No-one knows categorically why medical practitioners at that time and in different parts of the globe were starting to turn their backs on superstition as a source of diagnosis. It may be coincidental that these new-found beliefs were concurrently being taken in the same field, but people travelled for trade on a vast scale and ideas will have moved around with them.
As always, the headspring of such profoundly innovative new ways of thinking will ultimately remain a mystery. It can't however be discounted that once the idea took flight it sent shockwaves across the world.
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