Hippocrates

NAME Hippocrates of Kos

WHAT FAMOUS FOR Known in antiquity as “The Great Physician” and later hailed as the “Father of Medicine,” Hippocrates transformed medicine from a mystical, religious practice into a rational, observational discipline grounded in natural causes and clinical study. He is traditionally associated with the Hippocratic Oath, which remains influential in medical ethics today.

BIRTH Born around 460 BC on the island of Kos, Greece. This date is widely accepted by ancient and modern historians, placing him in the Classical period of Greek history.​

FAMILY BACKGROUND Hippocrates came from a wealthy and prestigious lineage of priest-physicians known as the Asclepiads. His father was Heracleides, a physician, and his mother was named Praxithea. He claimed ancestry from Asclepius (the god of medicine) through his father and from Hercules through his mother.​

CHILDHOOD Little is recorded of his early years, but he grew up in the environment of the Asklepieion of Kos, a healing temple where he would have been exposed to clinical cases and botanical remedies from a very young age.

Asklepieion on Kos Wikipedia

Little is recorded of his early years, but as a son of the Asclepiad guild, he would have been raised in a privileged environment centered on medical learning. He likely received a traditional Greek education involving physical training, music, and grammar before beginning his medical apprenticeship.​

EDUCATION His primary medical education came from his father, Heracleides, and another physician, Herodicus of Selymbria. He is also said to have studied rhetoric under the sophist Gorgias and philosophy under Democritus of Abdera, which helped shape his logical approach to diagnosis.

CAREER RECORD Hippocrates spent his life practicing and teaching medicine, traveling widely across mainland Greece (including Thessaly and Thrace) and possibly as far as Libya and Egypt. 

He founded a medical school on Kos and was so renowned in his lifetime that Plato compared his professional stature to that of the great sculptors Polycleitus and Phidias.​

APPEARANCE Contemporary descriptions are nonexistent, but Aristotle in his Politics refers to him as "the Great Hippocrates" while noting he was "small in stature." Later artistic depictions invariably show him as a dignified, balding, bearded figure, often with a wrinkled face suggesting wisdom and age.​

A conventionalized image in a Roman "portrait" bust (19th-century engraving)

FASHION As a respected professional of the Classical era, Hippocrates would have worn the standard Greek himation (cloak), chiton (tunic) and sandals. Later art depicts him in these traditional draped garments, befitting a philosopher-physician.​

Ancient busts often show him with his chest partially bare, reflecting the style of a Greek philosopher or teacher.

CHARACTER He was regarded as a man of high integrity, solemnity, and intellect. The "Hippocratic" ideal portrays him as a humble, observant, and cautious physician who prioritized the patient's welfare above all else, embodying the ethical principles found in the Corpus.​

SPEAKING VOICE Hippocrates' success as a traveling teacher who attracted paying students suggests he was an articulate and persuasive speaker (Plato describes him as a "professional" teacher). His writing style in the Corpus is noted for being laconic, precise, and authoritative, suggesting a direct and economical way of speaking.​

SENSE OF HUMOUR The tone of the Hippocratic Corpus is serious, objective, and professional, leaving no trace of wit or comedy.​ However, his philosophical proximity to Democritus (the "Laughing Philosopher") suggests he appreciated the irony of the human condition.

RELATIONSHIPS His most notable relationships were with his family members who were also his students: his sons Thessalus and Dracon, and his son-in-law Polybus. All three became celebrated physicians who carried on his teachings.​

MONEY AND FAME Hippocrates achieved considerable fame and financial success during his lifetime. Plato mentions that he taught medicine for a fee, and his reputation was such that he was known across the Greek world as the preeminent medical authority.​

While he accepted fees for teaching, he famously refused gifts and gold from the Persian King Artaxerxes, stating he would not help the enemies of Greece.

By the Hellenistic and Roman periods his fame had grown immensely, and he was revered as an ideal physician, though the exact extent of his wealth in life is unknown. 

Statue of Hippocrates in front of the Mayne Medical School in Brisbane By Chris Olszewski

FOOD AND DRINK While his personal diet is unknown, his medical writings heavily emphasize the importance of dietetics (regimen). He advocated for moderation and believed that food should be a primary form of medicine, famously associated with the concept "Let food be thy medicine" (though the exact quote is likely apocryphal).​

Hippocrates was possibly the first advocate of a fibre-rich diet, urging Greeks to bake bread with bran for its “salutary effect on the bowels.” (1)

In addition, Hippocrates wrote extensively about the preparation of medicinal herbs, including cinnamon, mint, and saffron. He specified when each herb should be gathered—some early, others later in the season—and gave instructions on whether they should be crushed or dried as part of their preparation, demonstrating an early understanding of dosage, timing, and method in herbal medicine. (1)

Hippocrates’ medical system featured wine as a remedy for almost all known acute and chronic ailments. He also recommended milk as medicine and believed mineral waters could improve health. (1)

Today, the way people talk about food and flavor reflects Hippocratic ideas. Traditional notions of pairings and balance, as well as phrases such as “dry” wine and “hot” spices, stem from his system of classifying foods and medicines by their perceived qualities. (2)

MUSIC AND ARTS Hippocrates likely received training in music as part of his childhood education. In his medical practice, he acknowledged the therapeutic value of the arts, but there is no record of him being a musician or artist himself.​

LITERATURE He is the central figure associated with the Hippocratic Corpus, a collection of around 60 medical works written in Ionic Greek, which includes seminal works like Aphorisms and On Airs, Waters, and Places. These texts include case histories, diagnostic manuals, prognostic guides, and aphorisms, and they deeply influenced later medical and scientific literature in both the Greek and Arabic–Latin traditions.

Hippocrates’ influence also extends deeply into language and everyday speech. Terms such as “common cold,” “sanguine,” “phlegmatic,” “melancholy,” and “humor” originate in Hippocratic medicine and its theory of bodily humors. So too do expressions like “to vent one’s spleen,” “don’t get your choler up,” “all wet,” and “a dry sense of humor.” (2)

While modern scholars believe these were written by multiple authors, they collectively represent his literary and scientific legacy.​

Text from the section Aphorisms in the Hippocratic Corpus

NATURE  Hippocrates was a devout naturalist. He was the first to argue that diseases were caused by environmental factors (climate, water, soil) rather than the wrath of the gods.

PETS While he and his contemporaries may have observed animals for anatomical knowledge (mostly external or slaughtered animals), they did not typically keep "pets" in the modern sense.​

HOBBIES AND SPORTS As a Greek of his status, he would have participated in gymnastics and physical training in his youth. His medical writings show a keen understanding of the effects of exercise on the body.​

SCIENCE AND MATHS Hippocrates was a pioneer of empirical science, rejecting supernatural explanations for disease in favor of observation, prognosis, and logic. His approach laid the groundwork for the scientific method in medicine, using rational deduction to understand bodily systems.​

PHILOSOPHY & THEOLOGY Hippocrates separated medicine from theology, arguing that diseases like epilepsy (the "Sacred Disease") had natural, not divine, causes. While he did not deny the gods, he believed they worked through nature, effectively de-secularizing medical practice.​ This philosophical shift was revolutionary and foundational to Western medicine.

POLITICS He was a staunch Greek patriot. His refusal to treat the Persian King during a plague is often cited as a sign of his loyalty to the Greek city-states during the Greco-Persian conflicts.

Hippocrates refusing the presents of Artaxerxes by Girodet, 1792

He held no known political office. However, his work had political dimensions, as he sometimes advised cities on public health matters (such as during the Plague of Athens) .

SCANDAL A persistent but likely fabricated legend claims that Hippocrates burned down the healing temple (Asclepieion) of Kos or a medical library in Cnidus to destroy rival knowledge or conceal his sources. This story is widely regarded by historians as ancient slander, similar to the myths about other great figures.​

MILITARY RECORD During the Peloponnesian War, he served as a physician to the Athenian army and citizens, particularly during the Great Plague of Athens (430 BC).

MEDICAL CAREER Hippocrates’ medical career is the main reason later generations felt compelled to give him the rather daunting title “Father of Medicine,” as if medicine itself had shown up one day asking for its allowance. Before Hippocrates, healing tended to hover uncomfortably between prayer, superstition, and hopeful guesswork. After him, it began—slowly and imperfectly—to look like something you could actually study.

He was born on the island of Kos into a long line of professional healers known as the Asclepiads, which meant that medicine was less a career choice than the family business. He learned first by apprenticing with his physician father and other local practitioners, then by travelling widely around the Aegean, picking up ideas, methods, and probably a few dubious cures along the way. By the time Plato casually mentions him in Protagoras, Hippocrates was already famous enough to serve as a yardstick for professional excellence—the ancient Greek equivalent of saying, “Well, even Hippocrates thinks so.”

What distinguished him in daily practice was not showy brilliance but methodical attention. Hippocrates believed that doctors should watch carefully, ask questions, and, above all, keep notes. He took detailed patient histories, followed illnesses over time, and tracked changes in appearance, temperature, pulse, and behavior. He sorted diseases into categories—acute, chronic, endemic, epidemic—and introduced concepts such as crisis, relapse, and convalescence, effectively inventing the idea that illness has a narrative arc and not just a dramatic beginning.

The range of medicine shaped by his school was remarkably broad. The writings associated with Hippocrates laid early foundations for what would later become surgery, neurology, orthopedics, urology, and respiratory medicine. They describe how to drain chest infections, set fractures, splint limbs, assess spinal injuries, recognize patterns of paralysis and stroke, and examine urine for signs of disease. It was all rather practical and hands-on, which was precisely the point.

A woodcut of the reduction of a dislocated shoulder with a Hippocratic device

The theoretical glue holding this system together was the famous four-humor theory—blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile—each linked to elements, seasons, and temperaments. Though now thoroughly defunct, the theory performed an important service: it framed disease as a natural imbalance rather than divine punishment. This allowed physicians to recommend diets, exercise, rest, bloodletting, purging, or cautery not because the gods demanded it, but because the body could, in principle, be nudged back into equilibrium.

Hippocrates and his followers also paid close attention to environment and lifestyle. Works such as Airs, Waters, Places read like early public-health manuals, stressing the influence of climate, water quality, housing, and habits on disease. Epidemics in Athens and Thessaly during the Peloponnesian War sharpened this focus, and the case-books known as Epidemics show physicians tracking fevers and respiratory illnesses across seasons with an almost epidemiological curiosity.

Teaching was central to Hippocrates’ professional life. He ran a medical school on Kos, taught students for a fee, and turned his practice into something that could be imitated rather than merely admired. The Hippocratic Corpus—a collection of dozens of treatises written by several hands within his circle—preserves this approach, standardizing how doctors recorded cases, reasoned about diagnosis, and justified treatments for centuries to come.

His legacy is also inseparable from medical ethics. The tradition attached to his name insists that doctors avoid harm, respect confidentiality, live moderately, and put patients before profit. The Hippocratic Oath, whether or not he personally composed it, distilled these ideas into a professional identity that doctors have been wrestling with—and swearing by—ever since.

By insisting that disease has natural causes, that physicians must learn at the bedside, and that medicine is a distinct, ethically guided profession, Hippocrates permanently altered what it meant to be a doctor. Modern historians tend to agree: if clinical medicine has a starting point, this thoughtful, observant physician from Kos is about as close as it gets. 

HEALTH AND PHYSICAL FITNESS He reportedly lived a very long life—ancient sources give his age at death variously as 83, 85, 90, or even over 100. This longevity suggests he practiced the healthy regimen of diet and exercise he preached.​

HOMES His primary home was on Kos. Later in life, he lived in Thessaly (northern Greece), specifically in the city of Larissa, where he eventually died.​

TRAVEL He was a well-traveled physician (periodeute), visiting cities across the Greek mainland, islands, and reportedly Thrace, the Propontis, and perhaps Libya and Egypt to learn and teach.​

DEATH Hippocrates died in Larissa, Thessaly, around 370 BC (dates vary between 375–351 BC). Legend says that a swarm of bees settled on his tomb, and their honey was used to cure children's ailments. His tomb was shown to visitors in Larissa for centuries afterwards.​

APPEARANCES IN MEDIA  He appears in various historical novels (e.g., The Physician by Noah Gordon)

He is a character in the video game Assassin's Creed Odyssey, where he is depicted as a dedicated young physician. 

Hippocrates is also frequently referenced in medical dramas and documentaries as the ethical standard-bearer of the profession.​

ACHIEVEMENTS Helped separate medicine from religion and superstition

Introduced systematic clinical observation

First recorded description of stroke-related paralysis

Promoted dietary fibre and herbal medicine

Authored or inspired texts that shaped medicine for 2,000 years

Established ethical standards through the Hippocratic Oath, still taken by doctors today

Sources; (1) Encyclopaedia of Trivia (2) University of Dayton Libraries