Hippocrates (460-370 B.C.) is one of the best known of the Ancient Greeks, and his Hippocratic Oath is still in use today. An ancient Greek physician of the Age of Pericles and the Golden Age of Athens, Hippocrates is considered one of the most outstanding figures in the history of medicine, known simply as the Father of Western 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 that it had traditionally been associated with (notably theurgy and philosophy), thus establishing medicine as a profession.
However, the achievements of the writers of the Corpus, the practitioners of Hippocratic medicine, and the actions of Hippocrates himself are often commingled; thus very little is known about what Hippocrates actually thought, wrote, and did. There are also claims that point to Imhotep of ancient Egypt as history's first physician. Nevertheless, Hippocrates is commonly portrayed as the paragon of the ancient physician. In particular, he is credited with greatly advancing the systematic study of clinical medicine, summing up the medical knowledge of previous schools, and prescribing practices for physicians through the Hippocratic Corpus and other works.
In The Book of Prognostics, Hippocrates explains how essential it is for physicians to get all of the necessary information in order to make their prognosis. This includes getting detailed medical history from patients, all forerunners of modern medicine.
This edition of The Book of Prognostics includes a Table of Contents and pictures of Hippocrates.
