HIPPOCRATES

Hippocrates was born in the island of Kos in 460 B.C. and died in Larissa, Greece in 377 B.C. As a historical personality, he was one of the most outstanding figures among the Greek philosophers, while many believe that he was the most prominent of all. He shined during the Age of Pericles, as his legacy and actions against fighting the famine of Athens -during the course of the Peloponnese War- exceeded the Greek borders. Hippocrates was the founder of rational medicine. He was a clinical doctor with a multifaced and multilayered personality, who based his scientific and ethical values 2.500 years ago.

He was the first to accept the natural causes in order to explain illnesses, by rejecting every supra-natural explanation of its cause. He managed to set medicine free from superstitions and biases and also, was the father of scientific medicine separating it from magic and theocratic vues and by introducing the scientific findings as well as the collective thought in the medical action.

Hippocrates was successful in matching the human-centered science with medicine and philosophical thought, as well as the professional exercise with the ethical and humanism values. He was an innovator and his work was in a high degree pro-active. This is why he influenced most of the medical-biological specialties of the western world, which named him as the founder and backbone of the Medical science.

The well known Hippocratic collection which is the backcone of medicine in the Golden Era is described in a nutshell to the Middle Ages Encyclopedia Souda:

«…παρ' Ἱπποκράτους βίβλοι πᾶσι τοῖς μετερχομένοις τὴν ἰατρικὴν ἐπιστήμην ἔκδηλοι·» και «….ἡ πολυθρύλλητος καὶ πολυθαύμαστος Ἑξηκοντάβιβλος, ἡ πᾶσαν ἰατρικὴν ἐπιστήμην τε καὶ σοφίαν ἐμπεριέχουσα». The Hippocratic collection is a cutting edge in medical history as it opens up a new chapter of the scientific medicine with grand ideas in the conception and endorsement within the highest framework of values and ethics.

The Asklepion in Kos, of this emblematic island in Dodecanese was the stepping stone of his therapeutic activity and fame. The Hippocratic Oath is one of the most effective contribution of Hippocrates as well as the basis of the modern medical ethics and thus, the deepest value of medicine that is the protection of human life and dignity as the one and only criterion of the medical actions.