Hippocrates (c460-370 BC). Head of a statue of the Ancient Greek doctor and philosopher Hippocrates. He is considered the father of medicine, although little is actually known about him. His influence survives in the Hippocratic oath, a set of medical ethics that some medical students take when they have completed their training. Hippocrates founded a medical school on the Aegean island of Cos where he taught his ideas on medicine. He had a rational approach, believing that disease was caused by physical phenomena, and not by the interference of supernatural beings (gods). Photographed at Capitolione Museum, Rome, Italy.