Hippocrates and the Hodos

Hippocrates was, in fact, not one guy. There was a physician named Hippocrates, about the time of Plato, practicing in Athens in the Golden Age of Greece, during the late 5th and early 4th century BCE.

But the writings that we attribute to this one person are undoubtedly a collection of works from the Golden Age of Greek medicine. It is collectively referred to as the Hippocratic Corpus. Most historians, though, use the convention of referring to him in the singular, just because it’s easier that way.

In Hippocratic medicine, women were hollow. There was one tube, which ran from the mouth to the vagina, known as the “hodos.” The uterus was an outpouching of this tube, located somewhere along the way. In fact, pretty much anywhere along the way. It travelled, you see.

Ancient Greek medicine was big on “humors.” The older systems relied on earth, fire, water, and air.

Men, you see, were hot and dry. When they started retaining water, it was a bad thing. Women, though, were wet and cold (Freud, anyone?).  If women became TOO dry or hot, they turned into men. Thus, the Athenian angst over the Spartan’s tendency to allow their women to exercise with the men. TOO hot, too dry. Spartan women were men, with breasts.

Greek women were spongy. Their bodies soaked up water. This extra water caused an imbalance in the classic humoral system—too much water was bad, and had to be removed. Normally, this removal happened naturally, when the woman menstruated. When she didn’t, though, bad things happened.

During pregnancy, the extra moisture that built up was stored for use in producing milk, so that was okay. It was during ordinary times that failure to menstruate was catastrophic. And not just a little—Hippocrates defines normal menstruation at somewhere around a pint of blood. That’s about eight times the average menstrual accumulation.

A buildup of fluid was a bad, bad thing. It could lead to melancholy, or outright mania. It could cause weakness, exhaustion, or edema (which is the one thing that actually is caused by too much fluid). It was sometimes relieved through bleeding elsewhere—especially nose bleeds and lung hemorrhages. Even bleeding from a finger could be considered diverted menstrual flow in a woman who was not eliminating her fluid in the normal way.

Virtually any symptom could be attributed to this horrid fluid buildup. The cure was, of course, blood letting.

On the other end of the spectrum, if a woman was too DRY, her womb, that voracious consumer of fluid, went looking for moisture. Since it was capable of wandering anywhere on the hodos, it did. If it wandered up into the neck, it could cause dropsy, madness, and even strangle her.

Treatments of this disorder were aimed at drawing the womb back into its normal position. Fragrant incenses were burned, and the woman was placed on a stool over them, to fumigate the vagina. At the same time, noxious smells were placed at the nose. This enticed the womb back into its proper place.

A virgin left too long a virgin was in dire danger of having her uterus go wandering, with all of its attendant risks. She required “opening.” This was generally accomplished by marriage, as this was the only societally acceptable method of opening, unless, of course, you happened to be one of the virgins chosen to be given to Apollo.

The famous Oracle at Delphi was always a virgin. She sat on a tripod stool, over a volcanic vent, through which fragrant steam Apollo entered her, allowing her to speak for him.

Just in case I had left you with the idea that all Greeks were prudes.

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