Talk:Hippocrates/Archive 1

message: This article is in poor repair.  A person hoping to learn about Hippocrates finds little substance here.  The "introductory" paragraph, which is longer than the article proper, includes two quotations, neither of which summarizes Hippocrates' medical positions or his importance in history.  These quotations should therefore not appear in the introduction.  (Given the very shallow treatment found in the rest of the article, they probably should not appear at all.)  The astrology comment in particular is misleading as it is presented.  Hippocrates is not famous for his interest in astrology, any more than Newton is famous for his fascination with the Bible.  (To see a good and proper treatment of how the peripheral interests of a great figure should be treated in an encyclopedia article, see the entry on Newton, particularly the introduction, which does not mention his religious fascination at all, though the subject is treated later in the article proper.)  For a point of reference, since there has been some debate about the relevance of astrology to Hippocrates' biography, the Oxford Classical Dictionary has a much longer article on Hippocrates, and it never once mentions astrology.
What is missing here, above all, is the substance a reader most wants when visiting this entry:  a thoughtful overview of the medical system attributed to (even if not definitively authored by) Hippocrates.  If a thoroughgoing assessment of this humor-, element-, and quality-based system were presented, then mention of astrology would become relevant, since Hippocrates' astrological ideas were related to his medical ideas.  If the question is how the Hippocratic "system" should be described, when it cannot be attributed to Hippocrates with certainty, then again I point to the Oxford Classical Dictionary, which presents the Hippocratic "system" by noting how different classical authors conceived of it, sometimes in conflicting ways.
Finally, it should be said that the debate below, about whether "science is a cult," is silly and inappropriate here.  My sympathies go to the student below who says that he is writing a paper on Hippocrates and cannot find answers to his questions here.  This is a surprisingly poor article.  Wikipedia should mark it as a stub.
—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.0.37.83 (talk • contribs) 15:19, 1 March 2006  (UTC)
* Hippocrates needs expansion per top comment on Talk:Hippocrates. Arniep 17:30, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Expansion

message: "The best known of the Hippocratic writings is the Hippocratic Oath."
"Incorrectly credited with the Hippocratic oath."
This seems contradictory. Did he write it or not?
CHz 17:13, 7 Nov 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: He didn't actually write anything, I don't think (it's probably also unknown if he was even a real person).  But there are "Hippocratic writings" attributed to him, even though he didn't personally write it. One of his students, or a student of the school associated with him, anyway, was the real author. Adam Bishop 17:16, 7 Nov 2003 (UTC)
thread_title: Old comments

message: Mr. Bishop's answer is very good, but a minor correction must be made. None of the 60-70 treatises of Corpus Hippocraticum ("hippocratic wirtings") can truly be ascribed to Hippocrates, but he was certainly a real person, a physician of very great reputation in Athens, at the end of 5th Century BC. We have the testimony of Plato in Protagoras (311b) that he learned medicine for a fee; in Phaedrus (270c-e) Plato gives us a glance in hippocratic thought: "if we are to believe Hippocrates, of the Asclepiad family, we cannot learn even about the body unless we follow this method of procedure" (translated by WHS Jones, 1923).
I am writing a paper on Hippocrates for school, and i need to know if there were any challenges that he faced.  But I cannot find any challenges anywhere....help
:Please put this on the Reference Desk. There must be other internet resources. When you're done, please insert your findings here for future reference! JFW | T@lk 09:17, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hippocrates lived ! 

message: Who is "Hippocrates of Khios" and not "Cos". Is he the same guy?
:Likely, uh? JFW | T@lk 17:33, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Khios is a different island from Cos --Fs 07:13, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Khios or Cos? 

message: What is the photo on the left, and why does it have no caption? --cobalt 14:09, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I asked the same question, chased a few links and discovered that it's likely the "Healing Temple" on Kos where Hippocrates was trained... studerby 00:55, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Photo 

message: how is his name generally pronounced?  HIP o crate' eez?  Hi' POC rat eez?
:: in greek we call it eep-oh-crah-tees. the english pronounciation is probably obvious  --Fs 07:13, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: pronunciation?