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 Hippocrates 460-c.377 B.C.  -  of Cos (Asia Minor)

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From IEP: Hippocrates of Cos was said to have lived sometime between 450 BCE to 380 BCE. He was a physician, and the writings of the Corpus Hippocraticum provide a wealth of information on biomedical methodology and offer one of the first reflective codes of professional ethics. Though Plato (a contemporary) makes reference to Hippocrates (Phaedrus 270a and elsewhere), it is generally believed that most of the writings in theCorpus Hippocraticum are actually the work of a number of different writers. By convention of time, place and general approach a common name of 'Hippocrates' was assigned to the lot (without distinguishing those of the historical Hippocrates). Hippocrates and the other associated writers provide the modern student with a number of different sorts of insights.

On the biomedical methodology side, these writings provide the most detailed biomedical observations to date in the Western world. They also offer causal speculations that can be knitted together to form a theoretical framework for diagnosis and treatment. On the ethical side, their code of professional ethics is so well structured that it continues to stand as a model for other professions.

From Columbia Encyclopedia:Greek physician, recognized as the father of medicine. He is believed to have been born on the island of Cos, to have studied under his father, a physician, to have traveled for some time, perhaps studying in Athens, and to have then returned to practice, teach, and write at Cos. The Hippocratic or Coan school that formed around him was of enormous importance in separating medicine from superstition and philosophic speculation, placing it on a strictly scientific plane based on objective observation and critical deductive reasoning.

Although Hippocrates followed the current belief that disease resulted from an imbalance of the four bodily humors, he maintained that the disturbance was influenced by outside forces and that the humors were glandular secretions. He believed that the goal of medicine should be to build the patient’s strength through appropriate diet and hygienic measures, resorting to more drastic treatment only when the symptoms showed this to be necessary. This was in contrast to the contemporary Cnidian school, which stressed detailed diagnosis and classification of diseases to the point of ignoring the patient. Hippocrates probably had an inkling of Mendelian and genomic factors in heredity, because he noted not only many of the signs of disease but also that symptoms could appear throughout a family or a community, or even over successive generations.

Of the large collection of writings that derived from the Coan school, only a few are generally ascribed to Hippocrates himself, although his influence is felt throughout. Of these, The Aphorisms, summing up his observations and deductions, and Airs, Waters, and Places, which recognized a link between environment and disease, are considered the most important. The collection has appeared in a number of translations, notably that of Littré.

While the Hippocratic oath cannot be directly credited to him either, it undoubtedly represents his ideals and principles. The oath, which still governs the ethical conduct of physicians today, is often recited at the graduation ceremonies of medical schools. Among other things the oath details codes of patients’ right to privacy, asks the physician to pledge to lead an honorable personal and professional life, and requires that he or she prescribe treatments only for curative purposes.

From Wikipedia: 

Hippocrates of Cos (c. 460 BC–377 BC) was an Ancient Greek physician, commonly regarded as one of the most outstanding figures in medicine of all time; he has been called the father of medicine. He was the leader of the medical school of Kos. Writings attributed to him rejected the superstition and magic of primitive "medicine" and laid the foundations of medicine as a branch of science.

Hippocrates introduced patient confidentiality, which is still in use today. This was under the Hippocratic Oath, which meant that people were to record their findings and methods used, to be passed down.

Hippocrates associated personality traits with the relative abundance of the four humours in the body: phlegm, yellow bile, black bile, and blood, and was a major influence on Galen.

The Hippocratic Corpus, a collection of about sixty treatises, most written between 430 BC and 330 BC, is actually a group of texts written by several different people holding several different viewpoints erroneously grouped under the name of Hippocrates at the Library of Alexandria. Most texts included in the Corpus are not considered to have been written by Hippocrates himself, and in fact many were written by his son-in-law Polybus. The best known of the Hippocratic writings is the Hippocratic Oath; however, this text was most likely not written by Hippocrates himself. A famous, time-honoured medical rule ascribed to Hippocrates is Primum non nocere ("first, do no harm").

 

Reading

Writing available on the net

http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/aut/hippocrates.html

Commentaries

Quotations

"There are, in fact, two things: science and opinion; the former begets knowledge, the latter ignorance."

"He who does not understand astrology is not a doctor but a fool."

"Art is long, life is short."