Hippocrates was born on the island of Cos, the son and grandson of a physician. He separated medicine from philosophy in a rational environment, characterized as one of the most memorable epochs in the intellectual development of the human race. His contemporaries included the philosopher Democritus, the statesman Pericles, the sculptors Polycletus and Phidias, the historians Herodotus and Thucydides, the poet Pindar, and the dramatists Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes.
The volume of medical and general literature attributed to or associated with Hippocrates and Greek medicine of his time exceeds that of any other physician. More scholars have devoted more years to the study, translation, and interpretation of Hippocratic works than to any other physician in the history of man. Those who profess superior knowledge of these epochal treatises are in general agreement that the collection of writings under his name probably represents the labors of many —some prepared even