User talk:Erik M. Baker

Welcome!

Welcome to the Citizendium! We hope you will contribute boldly and well. Here are pointers for a quick start. You'll probably want to know how to get started as an author. Just look at CZ:Getting Started for other helpful "startup" links, and CZ:Home for the top menu of community pages. Be sure to stay abreast of events via the Citizendium-L (broadcast) mailing list (do join!) and the blog. Please also join the workgroup mailing list(s) that concern your particular interests. You can test out editing in the sandbox if you'd like. If you need help to get going, the forums is one option. That's also where we discuss policy and proposals. You can ask any constable for help, too. Me, for instance! Just put a note on their "talk" page. Again, welcome and have fun! D. Matt Innis 18:56, 27 May 2008 (CDT)

Erik--welcome aboard. As a history editor I can only stress how much help we need, especially the last few centuries!. Richard Jensen 19:38, 27 May 2008 (CDT)

Hello from a biologist

Erik, may I call on you from time to time about issues that arise at the intersection of language and biology? For example, we have started an article on Hippocrates of Cos (b. 460 BCE), the titular Father of Medicine. The aphorisms attributed to him have received much attention up to the present day. The first aphorism some consider the 'law' of medicine, anything additional counting as commentary. Yet interpreting the first aphorism by English-speaking people without a deep understanding of ancient Greek depends on what translation they study. Perhaps your knowledge of ancient Greek could enrich the discussion. See Hippocrates, and consider contributing from your perspective. Thanks. --Anthony.Sebastian 11:02, 29 May 2008 (CDT)

Also, see Comparative linguistics, about the new school of historical linguistics. You may know things that could enrich the discussion. I could email you a PDF of the Emma Harris article referred to, if you cannot access it. Do you have access to an academic institutional library? --Anthony.Sebastian 11:08, 29 May 2008 (CDT)

Hippocrates

Erik, I think you can find the first aphorism in Greek here: http://daedalus.umkc.edu/hippocrates/LittreGreek/page.326.a.php?size=240x320. At any rate the site links to the entire Hippocratic Corpus in Greek. Which alphabet-version or dialect, I could not say.

I show two different English translations in Hippocrates. I will search for others.

I paraphrase the first aphorism as:

A physician cannot live long enough to learn the entire body of medical knowledge; a physician can expect a narrow optimal time window in which to intervene therapeutically in an effective way in a given patient; a physician attending a given patient cannot fully depend on the experience gained attending previous patients with similar signs and symptoms, as each patient has differences that might require differences in diagnosis and treatment; a physician can expect to arrive at a decision only with difficulty because of the large number of factors to weigh in; a physician should also attend to ensuring the cooperation of the patient and the patient's attendants, and to set the external environment in its most favorable state for the patient's recovery.

How much actually can one extract from the Greek? How would Hippocrates' contemporary physician interpret the first aphorism. --Anthony.Sebastian 16:59, 31 May 2008 (CDT)