Definition: The Hippocratic corpus is a body of about 70 medical texts written between the 6th and 4th centuries B.C., but mostly, between 450 and 350. Hippocrates of Cos, the putative author, did not write all of them and may not have written any of them. The people who wrote the treatises do not all agree with one another. There are two main schools of medicine identified with the Hippocratic Corpus, the schools of Cos and Cnidos. Only one text of the Hippocratic Corpus has been identified as probably having been written mostly by a specific person -- Hippocrates' son-in-law, Polybus, who was also his pupil. This is On the Nature of Man, which contains information on the humoral theory associated with Hippocrates.
IV. The body of man has in itself blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile ; these make up the nature of his body, and through these he feels pain or enjoys health. Now he enjoys the most perfect health when these elements are duly proportioned to one another in respect of compounding, power and bulk, and when they are perfectly mingled.
On the Nature of Man Translation, by W.H.S. Jones.
The corpus may have been put together at Alexandria in the third century B.C.
Hippocratic Corpus References
- Hippocratic Writings, by Hippocrates, John Chadwick
- Philosophy and Medicine in Ancient Greece, by William Henry Samuel Jones, Hippocrates
