Hippocrates
(c.460-377)
Also called the "Father of Medicine", Hippocrates was born on the island of Kos. Not much of him is known, except that he was exiled from his home, an outstanding physician and that he died in Larissa, where there is a monument of him.An anectdote tells us he was so sharp that once he met a girl in the street, and greeted her saying "good morning, maiden" but when he met her in the afternoon, he said "good evening, woman".
Hippocrates was almost free of superstition, and believed disease came from nature as opposed to from the gods. He even stated that epilepsy was caused from a blockage in the brain.He was the first physician to actually examine his patients.
A revolutionary aspect that was invented by Hippocrates was the concepts of clenliness. When the plague broke out he recommended that people burn their clothes and boil the water before they drank it. It was to take over 2000 years before this was rediscovered.
He wrote about diagnostical methods, diets, the importance of hygene, how to prevent diseases, surgery, women's diseases, the construction of towns and houses in order for people's environment to be healthy, massage et.c.
Hippocrates believed the health is good when the four humours, blood, yellow bile, black bile and phlegnm, are in balance. When we vomit, cough or sweat for example, the body is trying to get rid of excessive amounts of one or more of these humours.
The Hippocratic Oath, which he might not have actually written himself, is