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Hippocratic medicine remains one of Ancient Greece's lasting contributions to the field of science. Lacking the equipment physicians today take for granted when diagnosing and healing their patients, Hippocratic physicians were forced to create a novel system for explaining and curing disease based upon the prevalent scientific theories of their era. This system became known as the humoral theory of disease. Humoral theory incorporated the theories of Presocratic philosophers in order to explain disease and …

…similarity, the rules for change in the outside world applied to man as well. When these two themes were interpreted by physicians, the humoral theory was created. We know today that the physician did indeed come into contact with such material, and that some were even skeptical and critical of it. Ultimately the humoral theory was an educated guess about the inner workings of the body which was based upon Presocratic assumptions about natural phenomena.