1 article for "Hippocrates"
Hippocrates [Astro*Index](hih-pok'ruhh-teez)
(BC460-370) Greek physician, born on the Aegean island of Kos and died at Larissa (Larisa), Thessaly.
Save for a statue found on Kos in 1933, essentially nothing absolute is known about Hippocrates. According to tradition, he visited Egypt, where he studied medicine from the writings of Imhotep. He is also said to have studied under Democritus, and to have taught at Athens. He founded a school of medicine on Cos. Although more than 50 books (the "Hippocratic collection") are attributed to him, it is doubtful that any were written by him. Instead, they are collective works of several generations of students from his school, assembled during the 3rd century BC at Alexandria. He regarded all diseases as due to purely physical causes (even epilepsy), and not to evil demons. The Hippocratic school taught that disease was the result of an imbalance of humors of the body (vital fluids), of which there were four: blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile.
Astro*Index Copyright © 1997 Michael Erlewine