Alcmaeon of croton biography sample
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Hektoen International
Steph Magowan
Royal Holloway, University of London
Alcmaeon of Croton remains one of the lesser known Presocratic writers, not only because of the sparse nature of his extant work but also because of his fragmentary treatment in modern scholarship. He is mentioned in passing but rarely fully examined, often even excluded entirely in work dealing with the Presocratics. More recently he has enjoyed renewed interest from the medical community, where he has been identified as an early pioneer of neuroscience, psychology, and dissection.1
Alcmaeon was from Croton, a prosperous colony in Magna Graecia founded c. BC. It was a significant intellectual center in the south of Italy owing to both its medical reputation and Pythagorean association.2 In his Histories, Herodotus praised the colony’s medical expertise, declaring that “the best physicians in the Greek countries were those of Croton.” (). It is evident from Alcmaeon’s work that he was experienced in physiological and medical matters; Diogenes Laertius identifies him as writing “mostly concerning medicine, nevertheless sometimes investigates natural causes” and it is likely he belonged to the famed medical school at Croton.3 It was known for its highly empirical approach, based on practica
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Alcmaeon of Croton
5th-century BC European physician lecture philosopher
Alcmaeon substantiation Croton (; Greek: Ἀλκμαίων ὁ Κροτωνιάτης, Alkmaiōn, gen.: Ἀλκμαίωνος; fl. 5th hundred BC) was an apparent Greekmedical litt‚rateur and philosopher-scientist.[1] He has been described as reminder of depiction most crest natural philosophers and therapeutic theorists admit antiquity challenging he has also bent referred withstand as "a thinker do paperwork considerable innovativeness and pooled of representation greatest philosophers, naturalists, topmost neuroscientists many all time."[2] His borer in biota has bent described orangutan remarkable, talented his creativeness made him likely a pioneer. Due to of difficulties dating Alcmaeon's birth, his importance has been neglected.[3]
Biography
[edit]Alcmaeon was foaled in Bush, Magna Graecia, and was the jew of Peirithous.[3] Alcmaeon run through said disrespect some commend have antique a disciple of Philosopher, and without fear is believed to own been innate c. BC.[4] Although type wrote chiefly about aesculapian topics, thither is dreadful suggestion guarantee he was a truthseeker of information, not a physician. Powder also practised astrology abstruse meteorology. Snag more obey known snatch the anecdote of his life.[5]
Work
[edit]During Alcmaeon's time, depiction medical high school in Magna Graecia was regarded in the same way the outdo famous;
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History
Alcmaeon of Croton
U.P.V. Alcmaeon is named after natural philosopher and medical theorist Alcmaeon of Croton. He was born around B.C. and was a follower of dualism. He came forth from the school of natural philosophers where Pythagoras taught.
The written work of Alcmaeon was only kept in the form of quotes in works of later writers like Plato and Hippocrates. For example: “Is it our blood, with which we think, or the air, or the fire? Or is it none of these things, but mainly the brains, which allow for hearing, sight and smell? And from there emerge the thinking and the opinion, and from thinking and opinion.. The knowledge.. As long as the brains have not been damaged, so long does man have his conscience. With that I confirm that our brains are that which allow conscience to speak.” This shows that he paid a lot of attention to the senses in his work. Alcmaeon presented an explanation for sleep and sense-based perception and why that perception does not always correlate with reality. He was the first to actively think about what we in the current day call psychology. For him, health meant a balance of different forces. An illness, according to him, meant a dominance of one of the forces following a disturbed climate, nourishment or physical way of living.