He is traditionally referred to as the "Father of Medicine" in recognition of his lasting contributions to the field, such as the use of prognosis and clinical observation, the systematic categorization of diseases, and the (however misguided) formulation of humoral theory.

Hippocrates is commonly portrayed as the paragon of the ancient physician and credited with coining the Hippocratic Oath, which is still relevant and in use today.

He is also 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.

[1][3] Historians agree that Hippocrates was born around the year 460 BC on the Greek island of Kos; other biographical information, however, is likely to be untrue.

[1][7] Hippocrates is mentioned in passing in the writings of two contemporaries: in Plato's dialogues Protagoras and Phaedrus,[8] and in Aristotle's Politics, all of which date from the 4th century BC.

[9] Soranus wrote that Hippocrates's father was Heraclides, a physician, and his mother was Praxitela, daughter of Tizane.

[14] Hippocrates taught and practiced medicine throughout his life, traveling at least as far as Thessaly, Thrace, and the Sea of Marmara.

[15] He separated the discipline of medicine from religion, believing and arguing that disease was not a punishment inflicted by the gods but rather the product of environmental factors, diet, and living habits.

This shift in medical thought since Hippocrates's day has generated serious criticism of their denunciations; for example, the French doctor M. S. Houdart called the Hippocratic treatment a "meditation upon death".

According to this doctrine, crises tend to occur on critical days, which were supposed to be a fixed time after the contraction of a disease.

The therapeutic approach was based on "the healing power of nature" (Latin: vis medicatrix naturae).

[31] This passive approach was very successful in treating relatively simple ailments such as broken bones, which required traction to stretch the skeletal system and relieve pressure on the injured area.

At Hippocrates's time, medicinal therapy was quite immature, and often the best thing that physicians could do was to evaluate an illness and predict its likely progression based upon data collected in detailed case histories.

The Hippocratic physician paid careful attention to all aspects of his practice: he followed detailed specifications for "lighting, personnel, instruments, positioning of the patient, and techniques of bandaging and splinting" in the ancient operating room.

[11] Hippocrates made careful, regular note of many symptoms including complexion, pulse, fever, pains, movement, and excretions.

Shakespeare famously alludes to this description when writing of Falstaff's death in Act II, Scene iii.

of Henry V.[46][47] Hippocrates began to categorize illnesses as acute, chronic, endemic and epidemic, and use terms such as, "exacerbation, relapse, resolution, crisis, paroxysm, peak, and convalescence.

"[37][48] Another of Hippocrates's major contributions may be found in his descriptions of the symptomatology, physical findings, surgical treatment and prognosis of thoracic empyema, i.e. suppuration of the lining of the chest cavity.

Hemorrhoids, for instance, though believed to be caused by an excess of bile and phlegm, were treated by Hippocratic physicians in relatively advanced ways.

[50][51] Cautery and excision are described in the Hippocratic Corpus, in addition to the preferred methods: ligating the hemorrhoids and drying them with a hot iron.

[57][58] In 2017, researchers claimed that, while conducting restorations on the Saint Catherine's Monastery in South Sinai, they found a manuscript which contains a medical recipe of Hippocrates.

Because of the variety of subjects, writing styles and apparent date of construction, the Hippocratic Corpus could not have been written by one person (Ermerins numbers the authors at nineteen).

[63] The Hippocratic Corpus contains textbooks, lectures, research, notes and philosophical essays on various subjects in medicine, in no particular order.

[31] The Hippocratic Oath, a seminal document on the ethics of medical practice, was attributed to Hippocrates in antiquity although new information shows it may have been written after his death.

[70] So revered was Hippocrates that his teachings were largely taken as too great to be improved upon and no significant advancements of his methods were made for a long time.

Fielding Garrison, an authority on medical history, stated, "He is, above all, the exemplar of that flexible, critical, well-poised attitude of mind, ever on the lookout for sources of error, which is the very essence of the scientific spirit.

"[75] "His figure... stands for all time as that of the ideal physician," according to A Short History of Medicine, inspiring the medical profession since his death.

The Hippocrates Project is a program of the New York University Medical Center to enhance education through use of technology.

Project Hippocrates (an acronym of "High Performance Computing for Robot-Assisted Surgery") is an effort of the Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science and Shadyside Medical Center, "to develop advanced planning, simulation, and execution technologies for the next generation of computer-assisted surgical robots.

Hippocrates's legendary genealogy traces his paternal heritage directly to Asklepius and his maternal ancestry to Heracles.