Hippocrates

Elizabeth Craik is Honorary Professor in the School of Classics at the University of St Andrews. She has published widely on literature, social history and history of medicine in ancient Greece, including The ‘Hippocratic' Corpus (2015).

An original and insightful examination of the historical Hippocrates and the subsequent crafting of his sacralization. A beautifully written work of supple scholarship, it is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the shifting dynamics and enduring impact of Hippocrates on the formation of the Western medical tradition. - Julius Rocca, Humboldt University, author of Galen on the BrainIn this learned, lucid, and highly accessible volume, Elizabeth Craik takes a new and original approach to the collection of ancient medical writings known as the Hippocratic corpus. Basing her analysis on commonalities of language and of content, she identifies three main strands among the many authors whose work the corpus preserves and locates them in the cultural and intellectual background of the regions in which they developed. The result is an unconventional and stimulating biography that takes questions of authorship seriously, situating ancient medicine not only in its original ancient Greek contexts, but also in its wider reception history. - Douglas Cairns, Professor of Classics, The University of EdinburghDrawing on her extensive knowledge of the Hippocratic Corpus, Elizabeth Craik reconstructs the different voices of Hippocrates, offering an authoritative, sophisticated, and methodologically original survey of the evidence surrounding the life, thought, and legacy of this puzzling figure. - Chloe Balla, Professor of Ancient Philosophy, University of Crete