The late 5th century BC produced two prominent Greek Hippocrates — contemporaries, with the same first name, in different fields. What did each accomplish?
Hippocrates of Cos (c. 460–375 BC) was the founder of the European medical tradition, born to a family of Asklepiad physicians at the Asklepieion of Cos. His Hippocratic Corpus — about 60 Greek medical treatises — defined European medical theory for two thousand years. The Hippocratic Oath is the most famous text. Hippocrates of Chios (c. 470–410 BC) was a mathematician of substantial original accomplishment: he wrote the first written *Elements of Geometry* (the lost predecessor of Euclid's *Elements*) and computed the first quadrature of a curved figure (the lune). They never met.
Read the full story →Hippocrates of Cos and Hippocrates of Chios were near-contemporaries — both Greek, both prominent in their fields, both with the same first name — and were occasionally confused even by ancient sources. One founded the European medical tradition; the other wrote the first textbook of European geometry.
Related questions
- On the evening of 16 December 1997, approximately 685 Japanese children were hospitalised after watching an episode of the *Pokémon* television series. The triggering element was a four-second sequence of alternating red and blue flashes. At what frequency?
- Tycho Brahe wore a metal prosthetic nose for 35 years after a duel cost him the bridge of his original. Literary tradition long said the prosthesis was silver and gold. What did 20th-century forensic analysis of his exhumed remains actually find?
- Approximately how many people died globally in the 1918-1920 influenza pandemic?
- Who began the 1518 Strasbourg dancing plague?