of Cos was not long after them. The direct ancestors of Hippocrates were among the teachers of the temple who became eager to make known the accumulated science in their possession, and thus by the time when the famous teacher was born (460 B.C.) the world was ripe for his intellect to have free play.
Hippocrates.
Hippocrates was born in Cos, as far as can be ascertained, about the year 460 B.C., and is alleged to have lived to be 99, or, as some say, 109 years of age. It is claimed that his father, Heraclides, was a direct descendant of Æsculapius, and that his mother, Phenarita, was of the family of Hercules. His father and his paternal ancestors in a long line were all priests of the Æsculapian temples, and his sons and their sons after them also practised medicine in the same surroundings. The family, traceable for nearly 300 years, among whom were seven of the name of Hippocrates, were all, it would appear, singularly free from the charlatanism which the Greek dramatists attributed to the Æsculapian practitioners, from the superstition which overlaid the medical science of so many older and later centuries, and especially from the fantastic pharmacy which was to develop to such an absurd extent in the following five hundred years.
It is not possible to distinguish with any confidence the genuine from the spurious writings attributed to Hippocrates which have come down to us. But the note which even his imitators sought to copy was one of directness, lucidity, and candour. He tells of his failures as simply as of his successes. He does not seek to deduce a system from his experience, and though he
