Hippocrates Now

Helen King is Professor Emerita of Classical Studies at The Open University, UK. She has published widely on ancient medicine and its reception in the Renaissance and early modern world including, most recently, The One-Sex Body on Trial (2013).

• AcknowledgementsList of IllustrationsList of AbbreviationsIntroduction Receiving HippocratesLooking like HippocratesHairs of HippocratesChapter 1: What we know about Hippocrates Chapter 2: What we thought we knew Hippocrates as God and Galen as his prophet? Finding a Hippocratic treatiseMaking a Corpus Authors and titles: what is a treatise? Creating the myths: biographies and pseudepigraphaBeing ‘nice’: the personality of HippocratesMoving beyond the mythsChapter 3: Sabotaging the story: what Hippocrates didn’t write Writing new storiesWikipedia as a moving targetBeing the daddyTwo decades in the slammer?Spreading the mythsThe Complicated BodyFrom coercion to freedomChapter 4: Needing a bit of information: Hippocrates in the news Taking and breaking: the Hippocratic OathImhotep and the power of Egyptian medicinePoop proof: Hippocrates’ parasitesJulius please her: Hippocratic hysteriaA long history? Meanwhile in Babylon The Hippocrates detox dietChapter 5: Hippocrates in quotes Flitting like a bee: becoming a quoteFirst do no harmWalking is the best medicineChapter 6: Let food be thy medicine Let food be thy medicineBack to the source?Which foods? Liver, garlic and watercress Death begins in the gut: constipation and HippocratesChapter 7: The holistic Hippocrates: ‘Treating the patient, not just the disease’ The self-healing bodyHippocrates in contemporary holistic medicineInvoking Hippocrates through historyHippocrates brandedConclusion: Strange remedies? Bibliography NotesIndex

Helen King’s engaging examination of web-based appropriations of Hippocrates is especially salient reading during the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated lock-downs.