as a giverof health.At the beginning she was the goddess of corporal well-
being. Latershe was also connected to mentalhealth; the aphorismmenssana in corporesano' appliesto this,a healthymindin a healthybody'. Her sister
was faced, like her father,withhealing by medicines.
Hygeia was celebrated in manyplacesin the Greekand Romanworld.She
was sungaboutand represented by many artistsfromthe 4th centuryBCuntilthe
end of the Romanperiod.Statuesof Hygeia weremade by well-knownmasters
suchas Skopias,Tomotheos and Bryaxis.The nameof Hygeia has survivedin
the word hygiene and its components. Her sacred snaketogether withthe rod of
Asclepiusis the signfor medicine.
Hippocrates(460±3 77 BC)
Hippocrates,the most famousdoctorin ancient Greece, was calledthe Father of
Medicine.Hippocrates basedmedicineon objectiveobservationand deductive
reasoning.His medical schooland sanatorium on the islandof Kos developed
principlesand methodsin curingthat havebeenusedeversince.Hippocrates
and his followers elaborated an entirelyrationalsystemthat was basedon the
classificationof the symptomsof differentdiseases. He taught that medicine
should build the patient's strengththroughdiet and hygiene,resorting to more
drastic treatmentonlywhennecessary. All historians agreethat he taught validly
concerningepidemics, fever, epilepsy, fractures,the differencebetweenmalig-
nantand benign tumours, health in general and,mostof all, the importance of
hygiene, the healing power of foodand the needfor highethicalvaluesin the
practice of medicine.He laid utmoststresson hygieneand diet,but usedherbal
remedies and surgerywhen necessary.
An overview of the workof Hippocratesis presented in the bookMagni
HippocratisCoi OperaOmnia(Hollier, 1623).It containseverythingthat had
beenascribedto Hippocrates up to the 17thcentury.
Otherhygienemeasures
Overmanymillennia,humankindhas learnedhowto selectedibleplantand
animalspecies, andhow to produce, harvest andprepare them for food
purposes.Thiswas mostlydoneon the basisof trial and errorand fromlong
experience.Manyof the lessonslearned,especiallythoserelatingto adverse
effectson humanhealthare reflectedin variousreligioustaboos,whichinclude
a ban on eating specificitems, such as pork, in the Jewishand Muslim
religions(Tannahill,1973).Othertaboosshoweda moregeneralappreciation
of food hygiene. In India, for example, religious laws prohibited the
consumptionof certain`unclean'foods,suchas meatcut witha sword,or
sniffed by a dog or cat, and meat obtained from carnivorous animals
(Tannahill,1973).Mostof thesefoodsafetyrequirementswereestablished
thousandsof yearsago whenreligiouslawswerelikelyto havebeenthe only
onesin existence.The introductionof controlmeasuresin civillaw was of a
muchlaterdate.
2 Handbookof hygienecontrolin the foodindustry