HIPPOC'EATES, the most celebrated physician of antiquity, was the son of Herac leides, who was also a physician, and belonged to the family of the Aselepiaffin, the subject of the present notice being either the 19th or the 17th in descent from YEscula plus. His mother, whose name was Pheenarete, was said to be descended from Hercules. , He was born in the island of Cos, probably about the year 460 sac. lie is said to have been instructed in medicine by his father and by Ilertidicus, and in phi losophy by Gorgias of Leontini, the celebrated sophist, and Democritus of Abdera, whose cure, when affected by madness, he afterwards effected. After spending some time in traveling through different parts of Greece, he settled and practiced his profession nt Cos, and finally died at Larissa, in Thessaly. His age at the time of his death is uncertain, and is stated by different ancient authors to have been 85, 90, 104, and 108 years. Clinton (Fasti places his death 337 at the age or 101. We know little more of his personal history than that he was highly esteemed as a physician and an author. and that he raised the medical school of Cos to a very high reputation. His works were studied and quoted by Plato. Various stories are recorded of him by Greek writers, which are undoubtedly fabulous, and to which it is therefore unnecessary to advert; and we find legends regarding bins in the works of Arabic writers, who term bins "Bokrzit," while the European story-tellers of the middle ages celebrate him under the name of " Ypocras," and, in defiance of chronology, make him professor of medi cine at Home, with a nephew of wondrous medical skill, whom he dispatched in his own stead to the king of Hungary.
The works bearing the name; of Hippocrates, and termed the Hippocratic collection. are more than 60 in number, and, as Dr. Greenhill observes in his article on Hippocrates in Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Bioyraphy, etc., "the classification of these, and assigning each (as possible) to its proper author, constitutes by far the most difficult question connected with ancient medical writers." Dr. Greenhill divides the Hippocratic collection into eight classes, of which we need specify only two. (For con venience, we give the Latin instead of the Greek titles.) Class 1.—Works certainly written by Hippocrates, containing Prognostica; Aphorismi; De 'Morbis Popularibus; De Rations Victus in Morbis Acutis; Dc _dere, *Ids, et Loci's; and De Capitis Vulneribus. Some eminent critics doubt the genuineness of some portions of the Aphorismi, the work by which Hippocrates is most popularly known.
Class perhaps written by IIi ppoerates: These are 11 in number, and one of them is the well-known Jujurandum, or " Hippocratic Oath."
The others consist of works written before Hippocrates; works whose author is con jectured; works by quite unknown authors; and willful forgeries.
For anything like a full account. of his views, we must refer to the various writers who have treated of the history of medicine. We can here only mention that he divides the causes of disease into two principal classes: the first consisting of the influence of seasons, climates, water, situation, etc.; and the second of more personal causes, such as the food and exercise of the individual patient. His belief in the influence which different climates exert on the human constitution is very strongly expressed. He ascribes to this influence both the conformation of the body and the disposition of the mind, and hence accounts for the differences between the hardy Greek and the Asiatic. The four fluids or humors of the body (blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile) were regarded by him as the primary seats of disease; health was the result of the due com bination (or crasis) of these, and illness was the consequence of a disturbance of this crasis. When a disease was proceeding favorably, these humors underwent a certain change (or coction), which was the sign of returning health, as preparing the way for the expulsion of morbit: matter, or crisis, these crises having a tendency to occur at definite periods, which were hence called " critical days." His treatment of diseases was cautious. and what we now term expectant; it consisted chiefly and often solely in attention to diet and regimen: and lie was sometimes reproached with letting his patients die by doing nothing to keep them alive.
The works of Hippocrates were translated at an early period into Arabic. They were first printed in a Latin translation in 1525 at Home. The first Greek edition (the Aldine) appeared, the following year at Venice: an edition by Mercurialis appeared in 1588, one by FtS4siuS its 1895. and one by Van der (still much esteemed) in 1665. Other editions have appeared under theeditorship of Chartier, KtIhn, etc. The latest, and incomparably the best edition, is that of Littre, in 10 volumes, the first of which appeared i d in 1839, and the last in 1861. An edition by Ermerins, with a Latin trans.
i Litton. is now in course of publication at Utrecht, at the expense of the university of Amsterdam. _The Latin title runs as follows: Eippocratie et (apricot Medicorum retsrurn Religuite. Eduld Francurcas Zacharias Ermerius. The first three volumes appeared between 1859 and 1863. An excellent English translation of The Genuine Works of _Hippocrates was published in 1849 in 2 vols., by 1)r. Adams. The admirable French translation by M. Lime (1839-61) is in 10 vols.