Hippocrates - Legacy

Legacy

Hippocrates is widely considered to be the "Father of Medicine". His contributions revolutionized the practice of medicine; but after his death the advancement stalled. 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. The centuries after Hippocrates' death were marked as much by retrograde movement as by further advancement. For instance, "after the Hippocratic period, the practice of taking clinical case-histories died out," according to Fielding Garrison.

After Hippocrates, the next significant physician was Galen, a Greek who lived from AD. 129 to AD. 200. Galen perpetuated Hippocratic medicine, moving both forward and backward. In the Middle Ages, the Islamic world adopted Hippocratic methods and developed new medical technologies. After the European Renaissance, Hippocratic methods were revived in Europe and even further expanded in the 19th century. Notable among those who employed Hippocrates' rigorous clinical techniques were Sydenham, Heberden, Charcot and Osler. Henri Huchard, a French physician, said that these revivals make up "the whole history of internal medicine."

The most severe form of hair loss and baldness is called the Hippocratic form.