Environmental Determinism In Hippocrates, Airs, Water, And Places
Environmental determinism is an idea that the physical environment influences human progress towards specific routes. Hippocrates, Airs, Water, and Places, and Jared Diamond’s, Guns, Germs, and Steel, each offer a view of environmental determinism and suggests a link between the physical environment and medical discourse and racial classification/inequality.
Hippocrates Airs, Water, and Places was one of the first major works on environmental determinism. It concentrated on medical climatology, geography, meteorology, and anthropology. The text accredits that climate, especially Greek climate, and geography influenced human bodies that ultimately resulted in a superior race. These factors, such as wind quality, soil quality, or weather, had …show more content…
affects the body while Diamond’s theory of environmentalism focuses on how the land offered opportunities for the people living there. Hippocrates talks about how winds, soil, water, hotness or coldness of an area affect the humors of the body and thereby creating humans that either survive or depart in these areas. He also compares the geographic locations and how one place creates strong men and women while another location results in flabbier people. All these factors affect the human body and the balance between the four humors. Any imbalance can be attributed to these factors and explains why diseases are present in one region as opposed to another. Diamond’s theory argues that civilization is created as the result of opportunity that is made achievable by pre-conditions of the area. He explains that diseases arose because of the formation of cities, agriculture, and domestication of animals in these areas. Some areas, like Europe and China, had environmental characteristics suited for the development of a culture and society. These environmental characteristics, like climate, geography, etc. favored an early growth of steady agricultural societies that eventually led to immunity to diseases and the ability become powerful enough to have the capacity to dominate
Hippocrates Airs, Water, and Places was one of the first major works on environmental determinism. It concentrated on medical climatology, geography, meteorology, and anthropology. The text accredits that climate, especially Greek climate, and geography influenced human bodies that ultimately resulted in a superior race. These factors, such as wind quality, soil quality, or weather, had …show more content…
affects the body while Diamond’s theory of environmentalism focuses on how the land offered opportunities for the people living there. Hippocrates talks about how winds, soil, water, hotness or coldness of an area affect the humors of the body and thereby creating humans that either survive or depart in these areas. He also compares the geographic locations and how one place creates strong men and women while another location results in flabbier people. All these factors affect the human body and the balance between the four humors. Any imbalance can be attributed to these factors and explains why diseases are present in one region as opposed to another. Diamond’s theory argues that civilization is created as the result of opportunity that is made achievable by pre-conditions of the area. He explains that diseases arose because of the formation of cities, agriculture, and domestication of animals in these areas. Some areas, like Europe and China, had environmental characteristics suited for the development of a culture and society. These environmental characteristics, like climate, geography, etc. favored an early growth of steady agricultural societies that eventually led to immunity to diseases and the ability become powerful enough to have the capacity to dominate