Hippocrates Establishes Medicine as a Rational Discipline

On the Greek island of Kos, Hippocrates (c. 460–375 BCE) and his school systematically separated medicine from religious ritual and superstition, arguing that disease arose from natural causes — environment, diet, and living habits — rather than divine punishment. The Hippocratic Corpus, roughly 60 texts attributed to his school, introduced clinical observation, prognosis, and ethical practice as foundations of medicine. The Hippocratic Oath codified physician ethics for millennia. Though much of the Corpus was written by followers, the school's naturalistic framework transformed how human illness would be understood across cultures for two thousand years.