Hippocrates, The Hippocratic Corpus

Rebecca Fallas (The Open University)

Ed. by Laura Swift, The Open University
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.1.1: Greek Writing and Culture: Archaic, Classical, Hellenistic and Imperial, -800--100.
Vol. editors: Jonathan Burgess (University of Toronto), Giacomo Fedeli (University of Exeter), Emily Kneebone (University of Nottingham), Vaios Liapis (Open University of Cyprus), Elodie Paillard (University of Sydney), Mali Skotheim (Ashoka University), Laura Swift (The Open University)

Domains

Human medicine

Dates

First circulation or publication c. -440 - c. -340

Places

Genres and Modes

Non-fictional prose

Resources

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The ‘Hippocratic’ Corpus is a group of around sixty medical treatises, all of which are written in the ancient Greek Ionic dialect but differ in length, content and style. Most of the texts in the corpus appear to date from 430 to 330 BC; however, some are believed to date from a later period, including the works

Heart, Nutriment, Precepts and Decorum

, and some may even date from the first century AD. These texts began to be collected under the name of Hippocrates in the early Hellenistic period, but no single ancient manuscript of every treatise in the collection survives today and many only include a small selection of the works. Although traditionally ascribed to Hippocrates, it is not known which texts, if any, were written by him.

Works in the Hippocratic Corpus

Works in the

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3134 words

Citation: Fallas, Rebecca. "The Hippocratic Corpus". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 15 February 2017 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=35730, accessed 20 April 2024.]

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