Hippocratic and Modern Medicine

By Sally Fama Cochrane

13" x 21".

Oil on canvas. Summer 2009. This still life compares the Hippocratic and modern approaches to medicine. The four humors (blood, black bile, yellow bile, and phlegm) are represented by the vial of blood, dish of bile, gallstones, and brain, while modern medicine is represented by the pills and light lamp (used to treat seasonal affective disorder). While the details of the two medicinal systems are different, their structures are often similar in that both aim to create balance in the body -- whether by bleeding you because you have too much blood, or by giving you proton pump inhibitors to reduce gastric acid production.