Neo-Hippocratism was an influential movement and was the subject of numerous conversations and theorizations between the seventeenth and mid-nineteenth centuries. The movement saw a revival in popularity with physicians after the First World War.[1] It sought to reappraise the role of Hippocrates and Hippocratic medicine and was closely associated with the idea of the holistic treatment of the patient.[2]
The popularity of neo-Hippocratism has been seen as a reaction to the growing systematisation and professionalism of medicine which some physicians saw as reductionist and failing to treat the whole person.[3] Neo-Hippocratism is described as a rational and methodical method of seeing the body as a whole. Of examining a human in their entirety and “considers all medical and or internistic therapeutic agents- psychical, dietetic, chemical, biological, and physical- and applies them according to the indications of the individual patient under severe control of the continuous diagnosis of the person.[4]
The expression, neo-hippocratism is said to been first coined by Arturo Castiglioni in 1926.[5] One of the movement's principal promoters was Alexander Polycleitos Cawadias (1884–1971).[6]