hippocratic

Hip·poc·ra·tes   (hĭ-pŏk'rə-tēz')    Greek physician who laid the foundations of scientific medicine by freeing medical study from the constraints of philosophical speculation and superstition. He is traditionally but inaccurately considered the author of the Hippocratic oath. Hip'po·crat'ic (hĭp'ə-krāt'ĭk) adj.

Hippocrates [(hi-pok-ruh-teez)]

An ancient Greek physician (the “father of medicine”) who is credited with founding the study of medicine.

Main Entry: Hip·po·crat·ic
Pronunciation: "hip-&-'krat-ik
Function: adjective
: of or relating to Hippocrates or to the school ofmedicine that took his name
Hipápocáraátes /hip-'äk-r&-"tEz/ (ca 460 BC–ca 370 BC), Greek physician. Hippocrates has beentraditionally regarded as the founder of medicine. A teacher at an early Greek medical school, he strove to make an art and a science out of medicine and remove it from the realm of magic andsuperstition. Of the large body of works attributed to him, he probably wrote only a fraction. The corpus of Hippocratic writings covered such topics as diet, exercise, regimen, sleep, and externalremedies. Hippocratic medicine divided diseases into acute and chronic, epidemic and endemic, malignant and benign. A basic belief of that school was that the four humors of the body (blood, phlegm,yellow bile, and black bile) were the seats of disease. The Hippocratic oath owes much to the teachings and practice of Hippocrates although he probably did not personally write it.

Hippocrates Hip·poc·ra·tes (hĭ-pŏk'rə-tēz'), Called “the Father of Medicine.”. 460?-377? b.c.

Greek physician who laid the foundations of scientific medicine by freeing medical study from the constraints of philosophical speculation and superstition. He is traditionally but inaccurately considered the author of the Hippocratic oath.