The Father Medicine highly influential physician Greek, 460 BCE – 377 BCE
Born in 460 BCE on the island of Kos, Hippocrates looked at medicine and the human body in new and radical ways . He believed the body was connected and, using the theory of the four humours, looked for scientific and rational reasons for illness. By the time of his death, he had established the age’s most eminent school of medicine.
Top 5 Hippocrates Facts
1. He Believed in Scientific Reason
Before Hippocrates, illness was ascribed to divine reasons like the will of the gods. The Greek physician was among the first to look for natural causes, and used scientific reason and deduction to prescribe remedies like improved diet, sleep and better hygiene.
2. He was imprisoned for his beliefs
Many of those that governed Greece and held power opposed his theories on medicine as blasphemous, as they disregarded the influence of gods and superstition. As a result he endured a 20-year prison sentence, but while he was locked up wrote the influential medical book, The Complicated Body.
3. Founder of a medical college
On his home island of Kos he founded the Hippocratic School of medicine, which produced the Hippocratic Corpus, a collection of over 60 works. This institution revolutionised medicine in ancient Greece as the Cnidian School – which treated the body as separate parts that weren’t interconnected – had previously been the most eminent.
4. He was an innovator
Hippocrates was an innovator who performed the first ever documented chest surgery and, while the degree of sophistication has increased, modern surgery works on the same principles he used. He also described clubbed fingers as a significant diagnostic sign of chronic suppurative lung disease, lung cancer and cyanotic heart disease.
5. His work continues to influence
To this day, new doctors around the world swear a Hippocratic oath. This specifics the ethical standards that new physicians will abide by, and includes the line: ‘If I keep this oath faithfully, may I enjoy my life and practise my art, respected by all humanity and in all times; but if I swerve from it or violate it, may the reverse be my life.’