Science Fact Finder | Health and Medicine - Who Is Generally Regarded As The Founder Of Medicine?

Who is generally regarded as the founder of medicine?

Hippocrates (ca.460-ca.377 B.C.), an ancient Greek physician, holds this honor. Greek medicine, previous to Hippocrates, was a mixture of religion, mysticism, and necromancy (magic or witchcraft). Hippocrates established medicine as a science, separating it from religion and philosophy. He pointed out that diseases had natural causes and obeyed natural laws: they were not the "wrath of the gods."

Hippocrates believed that the four elements (earth, air, fire, and water) were represented in the body by four fluids (blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile), or "humors." When these fluids existed in harmony within the body, the body was in good health; and when they were not in harmony, illness would set in. The duty of the physician was to help nature maintain or restore the body's harmony.

According to Hippocrates, diet, exercise, and...

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