Hippocrates

An investigation into the mythical and historical father of medicine.

Who was the so-called 'father of medicine', commonly associated with the celebrated Hippocratic Oath? Elizabeth Craik explores evidence for the historical Hippocrates, who lived in the fifth century bce, and combines it with documentation and compelling excerpts from the 'Hippocratic Corpus', a vast and surprisingly varied collection of Greek medical texts, linked in transmission with his name. Craik draws on a wide and vivid range of texts, and through a focus on place in the ancient world and with an innovatory attention to language she shows how several different 'voices' of the Corpus may all be regarded as Hippocratic. Hippocrates: Man, Medic, Myth brings a vital new orientation to important questions of origins and authorship and provides a novel interpretation of a key figure in the history of medicine.