ABSTRACT
Hippocrates is often called the father of medicine for very good reasons, but his spirit of inquiry came at a time of significant progress in many disciplines such as Greek theatre, philosophy, astronomy, historiography and mathematics; new ideas in one discipline were noted by other disciplines, tried and elaborated or discarded. Empedocles defined their characteristics after the Greek gods thereby revealing that prevailing religious beliefs were still influential. Thus, he describes fire as 'shining Zeus’, air as 'life-bringing Hera’, earth as Aidoneus or Hades, and water as Nestis, who 'with tears moistens mortal spring’. Hippocratic medicine was influenced by these philosophical ideas and embraced humoral theory. Asclepiades of Bithynia, who brought Greek medicine to the Romans in the second century bc, completely rejected elemental and humoral theory as well as the notion of a benevolent nature. Flowever, further progress was primarily delayed by the collapse of the Roman Empire in the fifth century ad.
