49 Fun Facts About Hippocrates

By what title is Hippocrates traditionally known?

Hippocrates is traditionally called the Father of Medicine; the Hippocratic Corpus associated with his school stressed prognosis, careful clinical observation and the recording of case histories.

On which Greek island was Hippocrates born around 460 BC?

Hippocrates was born on Kos, in the Dodecanese off the coast of Asia Minor, around 460 BC, into a family of physicians.

What ethical pledge, taken by doctors in modified forms, is credited to Hippocrates?

The Hippocratic Oath, sworn by Apollo the physician and all the gods, is dated by scholars to the late fifth or fourth century BC and was probably not written by Hippocrates himself.

He was named after his grandfather; what suffix distinguishes the famous doctor from him?

Two of his grandsons were also called Hippocrates, numbered III and IV.

Who was Hippocrates's first biographer and the source of most personal details about him?

Soranus wrote in the 2nd century AD, some 500 years after his subject.

What was the profession of Hippocrates's father, Heraclides?

Heraclides was a physician, as was Hippocrates's grandfather, Hippocrates I; tradition holds that the boy learned medicine from both men.

Which two contemporaries mention Hippocrates in passing in their writings?

Plato mentions him in two dialogues as a famous physician who taught for a fee, and Aristotle in the Politics calls him 'the Great'.

According to Galen, who was Hippocrates's true successor?

His son-in-law Polybus, to whom On the Nature of Man is attributed, was called Hippocrates's true successor; his sons Thessalus and Draco were also his pupils.

Where did Hippocrates probably die?

Hippocrates probably died at Larissa in Thessaly around 370 BC; accounts put his age at 83, 85 or 90, and some claimed he lived past 100.

Hippocrates is credited as the first to believe that diseases were caused by what?

Hippocrates is credited with holding that disease arose from natural factors, not gods or superstition; the Corpus treats illness as a product of diet, environment and the body's own balance.

What were the four humours in Hippocratic medicine?

The four humours were blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile; illness was an excess or deficiency of one, and the theory persisted until nineteenth-century cellular pathology and germ theory displaced it.

Ancient Greek medicine was split between the Koan tradition of Hippocrates and which rival tradition?

The Knidian school, based at Cnidus on the Anatolian coast, stressed diagnosis and classifying diseases, while the Koan school of Hippocrates focused on prognosis and care of the patient.

Why did Greek medicine in Hippocrates's time know almost nothing of human anatomy?

A Greek taboo forbade dissecting humans, so Hippocratic doctors knew little anatomy or physiology; human dissection was first practised systematically at Alexandria in the third century BC.

In Hippocratic medicine, what was a 'crisis'?

A crisis was the turning point when a patient would either die or recover, often marked by a sweat or discharge; crises were expected on 'critical days' counted from the onset.

What Latin phrase sums up the Hippocratic idea that the body can heal itself?

Vis medicatrix naturae, 'the healing power of nature', expresses the Hippocratic belief that the body rebalances itself; treatment aimed to ease that process with rest and immobilisation.

What mixture did Hippocrates prescribe as a generalised treatment?

Honey and vinegar, mixed as oxymel, was a stock Hippocratic remedy, prescribed for many complaints in the treatise on regimen in acute diseases.

Which folk saying about eating and illness is sometimes traced to Hippocrates?

'Feed a cold, starve a fever' is often traced to Hippocratic advice that fasting helped fever patients, fever then being regarded as a disease in itself rather than a symptom.

What device named after Hippocrates used tension to set broken bones?

The Hippocratic bench, or scamnum, used winches and straps to apply traction, stretching the limb or spine so fractures and dislocations could be set.

Hippocrates reportedly measured a patient's pulse while taking a history to discover what?

Hippocrates is said to have felt the pulse during the case history to tell whether the patient was lying; he also recorded complexion, pains, movement and excretions with care.

What diagnostic sign of chronic lung disease is Hippocrates credited with first describing?

Clubbing of the fingers, noted in the Corpus in a patient with empyema, was the first recorded sign of chronic suppurative lung disease; clubbed fingers are also called Hippocratic fingers.

Shakespeare alludes to the 'Hippocratic face' of a dying person when describing whose death in Henry V?

Falstaff's death is reported by Mistress Quickly in Henry V ('his nose was as sharp as a pen'), echoing the Hippocratic face, the pinched look of the dying described in Prognostics.

Hippocrates is described as the first documented surgeon of which part of the body?

Hippocrates is called the first documented chest surgeon: the Corpus describes draining an empyema by cutting between the ribs and inserting a metal tube, the principle of later chest-drain surgery.

The Hippocratic Corpus's discussion of the rectal speculum is the earliest recorded reference to what?

The Corpus's mention of a rectal speculum is the earliest recorded reference to endoscopy, looking inside the body with an instrument; haemorrhoids were treated by ligation and cautery with a hot iron.

Which condition did Hippocrates help demote from a divine affliction to a common brain disorder?

On the Sacred Disease argued that epilepsy, then called the sacred disease, arose from the brain rather than from the gods, and that the brain was the seat of intelligence.

Which popular quotation attributed to Hippocrates is probably a misquotation?

'Let food be your medicine, and medicine be your food' appears nowhere in the Hippocratic Corpus; the slogan is first recorded in the twentieth century, and 'Walking is man's best medicine' is likewise of unknown origin.

Roughly how many treatises make up the Hippocratic Corpus?

The Hippocratic Corpus holds about seventy treatises, assembled in the third century BC and written by many hands over more than a century; one scholar counted nineteen authors.

Why are the Corpus's many treatises all attributed to Hippocrates?

An Alexandrian librarian may have filed them all under him because of his fame; the treatises were written by many hands over decades, and none can be securely assigned to Hippocrates himself.

Which of these is a genuine treatise in the Hippocratic Corpus?

On Airs, Waters and Places is a genuine Hippocratic treatise linking climate, water and locality to health; the other titles are works by Aristotle and Lucretius.

Which two principles of medical ethics does the Hippocratic Oath establish?

The Hippocratic Oath binds physicians to confidentiality and non-maleficence, swearing to keep secret what they see in practice and to keep patients from harm; it is the earliest Western statement of medical ethics.

Does the phrase 'First do no harm' (Primum non nocere) appear in the original oath?

A related phrase, 'either help or do not harm the patient', appears in the Epidemics.

Where is the oldest surviving manuscript of the oath held?

The oldest complete manuscript of the Oath, from about the 10th-11th century, is held in the Vatican Library; papyrus fragments of the text go back to around AD 275.

Which practice does the original Oath forbid, although other Hippocratic works describe surgery?

The Oath also forbids giving poisonous drugs and abortive pessaries.

What modern medical oath did the World Medical Association draft in 1948?

The Declaration of Geneva was adopted by the World Medical Association in 1948 as a modern successor to the Hippocratic Oath and has been revised several times since.

Who wrote the secular modern version of the Oath, used by many US medical schools, in 1964?

Louis Lasagna, later academic dean at Tufts medical school, wrote the widely used modern oath in 1964; it drops the pagan gods and adds 'I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science'.

Which Greek physician, born in AD 129, carried the Hippocratic tradition into the Roman Empire?

Galen, born at Pergamon in AD 129, wrote commentaries on the Hippocratic treatises and built his system on Hippocratic humoral theory, carrying it to the Islamic world and medieval Europe.

Beneath what, according to legend, did Hippocrates teach his pupils on Kos?

Legend places Hippocrates teaching under a plane tree in the island's main town; the tree standing there is perhaps 500 years old and is claimed to descend from the original.

A cutting from the Tree of Hippocrates was planted at which US institution in the 1960s?

A cutting from the Tree of Hippocrates, presented by Greece, was planted on the grounds of the National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, Maryland; many medical schools claim descendants of the tree.

In The Travels of Sir John Mandeville, Hippocrates's daughter is said to have been transformed into what?

A knight's kiss would turn her back into a woman; it is a version of the Melusine legend.

What is 'risus sardonicus', sometimes called the Hippocratic smile?

Risus sardonicus is a sustained spasm of the facial muscles that fixes the face in a grin; it is seen in tetanus and strychnine poisoning and is also called the Hippocratic smile.

Hippocrates's legendary genealogy traces his father's line to which god of healing?

The legendary genealogy makes Hippocrates a descendant of Asklepius, the god of healing, through his son Podalirius, while his mother's line went back to Heracles.

What did researchers claim to have found in 2017 while restoring Saint Catherine's Monastery in Sinai?

In 2017 restorers at Saint Catherine's Monastery reported a manuscript containing a medical recipe of Hippocrates, written over by a later text, alongside three illustrated herbal recipes by an anonymous scribe.

What is 'Project Hippocrates' at Carnegie Mellon an acronym for?

Project Hippocrates stands for High Performance Computing for Robot-Assisted Surgery, a Carnegie Mellon and Shadyside Medical Center effort on computer-assisted surgery; a lunar crater and a museum on his island also bear his name.

In which two dialogues does Plato mention Hippocrates by name?

In Protagoras he is 'Hippocrates of Kos, the Asclepiad'; Phaedrus credits him with insisting on knowledge of the body's nature.

Which Thracian physician of Selymbria is said to have taught Hippocrates?

Herodicus of Selymbria, a Thracian physician who pioneered therapeutic exercise, is named as Hippocrates's teacher; Hippocrates is also said to have studied with Democritus and Gorgias.

In what dialect of Greek is the Hippocratic Corpus written?

The Corpus is written in Ionic, the dialect of the Asia Minor coast and of early scientific prose, although Hippocrates's home island lay in Doric-speaking territory.

Of the 42 case histories in Epidemics I and III, roughly what share ended in the patient's death?

About 60% of the 42 patients in Epidemics I and III died (25 cases); the case histories, largely from Thasos, record endemic diseases such as colds, consumption and pneumonia.

The Hippocratic Corpus was first printed as a unit in 1525 in which language and city?

The Corpus first appeared in print as a unit in Latin, in Rome, in 1525, translated by Marco Fabio Calvo; the first complete Greek text came from the Aldine Press in Venice in 1526.

Who wrote the earliest surviving reference to the Hippocratic Oath, in AD 43?

Scribonius Largus, court physician under Claudius, cited the Oath in his Compositiones of AD 43, the earliest surviving reference, and was adamant that it forbade abortion.

In 2005 which country's leader declared doctors should swear an oath to him instead of the Hippocratic Oath?

Turkmenistan's president Saparmurat Niyazov, styled Turkmenbashi, decreed in 2005 that doctors swear an oath to him rather than the Hippocratic Oath; he died the following year.