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Hippocrates: Father Of Medicine

Hippocrates was a Greek physician who lived in Classical Greece (the Age of Pericles). He is considered one of the most outstanding figures in the history of medicine. What Hippocrates Knew and We Have Forgotten.

Hippocrates is often referred to as the "Father of Medicine" in recognition of his lasting contributions to the field as the founder of the Hippocratic School of Medicine. This intellectual school revolutionized medicine in ancient Greece, establishing it as a discipline distinct from other fields with which it had traditionally been associated (theurgy and philosophy), thus establishing medicine as a profession.


The Hippocratic Corpus (Latin: Corpus Hippocraticum) is a collection of around seventy early medical works collected in Alexandrian Greece. The Hippocratic Oath, a seminal document on the ethics of medical practice, was attributed to Hippocrates in antiquity although new information shows it may have been written after his death. This is probably the most famous document of the Hippocratic Corpus. Recently the authenticity of the document's author has come under scrutiny. While the Oath is rarely used in its original form today, it serves as a foundation for other, similar oaths and laws that define good medical practice and morals. Such derivatives are regularly taken today by medical graduates about to enter medical practice.

"What the Hippocratic Oath gave substance to was a vision of a medical community with a predictable character of high ethical standards which could support justifiable trust between physician and patient with all the therapeutic benefit which such a community produces."  Dr. Patrick argues that today, medicine has become more commercialized with a loss of these "communities of character." Therefore how can we currently put the Hippocratic oath into practice? Dr. John Patrick, a retired pediatrician and now a world-renown lecturer, explores these questions further in the above video.

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