HIPPOCRATES AND UROLOGY - THE FIRST SURGICAL SUBSPECIALTY

Hippocrates, who is generally considered a focal point for the start o f western medical tradition, left behind a corpus of medical writings that constituted the first recorded comprehensive health system. The p ivotal point of the Hippocratic corpus was the Hippocratic Oath, which outlined the duties of healers of his school, but demarcated lithotom y as a practice that was off limits to his fellow physicians. Surgery for bladder stone, urology in essence, was thus the first specifically identified surgical subspecialty. (C) 1997, Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.