[Polybos and the heritage of Hippocrates]

The rise of medicine as science is first expressed in the Corpus Hippocraticum, collection of writings of many authors and different schools. To Hippocrates is attributed the principal books, mainly by Galen, because the dogmatic authoritatian great ancient physician was of support to his own glory as new Hippocrates. In ancient Greece physicians were itinerant, travelling from city to city: when Hippocrates went out of Cos, the chairmanship of the School of Medicine was given to Polybos, son-in-law of Hippocrates and quoted by Aristotle as author of De Natura Hominis, a work which introduces physiopathology in medicine. Polybos joined the Hippocratic method (study the patient and not only the disease) with the naturalism derived from the School of Crotona and followed by Aristotle: thus Polybos seems to be not only the principal pupil of Hippocrates, but also the author of a synthesis of the medical thought of different schools, so that Hippocratism as summa of the medical thought of that time was propagated to our centuries.