Who was Hippocrates?

Who was Hippocrates?

Hippocrates (460-377 BC) was a great physician who lived during the Golden Age of Greece. Modern medicine can trace its root to his ideas.


Living at a time when diseases were treated by which doctors and magicians, Hippocrates was like a doctor of the 20th century. He said while curing the sick, a doctor should ‘consider the nature of humans in general, and of each individual and the characteristics of each disease’. In short his view was that the doctor should look into the whole human mechanism rather than focus on the symptom of a disease. He recommended that ‘exercise strengthens and inactivity wastes’.


Hippocrates did not make many discoveries, and his theory of blood circulation was wrong. But what he did was to formulate the theoretical base and the procedures by which medical science was to develop in the future. In fact, he laid down the framework of modern medical practice.

Hippocrates Oath

The Hippocrates Oath, written by Hippocrates, way back in the 4th century BC, is still respected and recited by doctors the world over. It is the foundation of the modern medical ethics. The tenets contained in it relate to a doctor’s duty to treat anyone, regardless of his social status.