Hippocratic Corpus

The Hippocratic Corpus (Latin: Corpus Hippocraticum), or Hippocratic Collection, is a collection of around 60 early Ancient Greek medical works strongly associated with the physician Hippocrates and his teachings. The Hippocratic Corpus covers many diverse aspects of medicine, from Hippocrates' medical theories to what he devised to be ethical means of medical practice, to addressing various illnesses. Even though it is considered a singular corpus that represents Hippocratic medicine, they vary (sometimes significantly) in content, age, style, methods, and views practiced; therefore, authorship is largely unknown. Hippocrates began Western society's development of medicine, through a delicate blending of the art of healing and scientific observations. What Hippocrates was sharing from within his collection of works was not only how to identify symptoms of disease and proper diagnostic practices, but more essentially, he was alluding to his personable form of art, "The art of true living and the art of fine medicine combined." The Hippocratic Corpus became the foundation upon which Western medical practice was built. Hippocrates was born 460 BCE on the island of Cos, Greece. Born into a family of priests, Hippocrates inherited the opportunity to practice medicine. But, he did not want to solely be an extension of his bloodline and continue the practice given to him under familial circumstances. At the time, he was opposed to the existing measures that made the practice of medicine heavily influenced by supernatural forces. He did not share in the belief that diseases were sent from God. For example, he was the first to describe epilepsy, not as a sacred disease sent from the divine, but rather a disease of the brain that was also hereditary. In addition to being opposed to his inheritance of opportunity, Hippocrates took that opposition and with it he decided to swing the doors of opportunity wide open and establish the School of Cos.