JF Ptak Science Books Quick Post
Extract from “On Ancient Medicine”, by Hippocrates, translated by Francis Adams, (1891), from his The Genuine Works of Hippocrates, published in New York by the medical publisher William Wood and Company.
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Hippocrates, Hippocrates of Cos, Hippocrates of Kos, a man of enormous and justified fame, is considered the father of modern medicine. He lived during the age of Pericles, this great physician, (ca. 460-370 BCE), though his life per se, and perhaps even his works, are more of an accumulation of efforts of others through addition and edit than the work of the one man known as Hippocrates. Still he is the outstanding figure in antiquity in the history of medicine, and perhaps it really doesn’t matter if people could ever know his absolutely original works, or not. Part of his life may be legendary, but his lasting importance to the practice of medicine is all that really matters.