Scientists of ancient Greece
Thales and Hippocrates
Thales
Thales and science
• An important contribution of Thales to
scientific thought was the discovery of
nature. By this, we mean the idea that the
natural phenomena we see around us are
explainable in terms of a set of natural
laws
Noteworthy facts associated with
Thales
• Thales was an astronomer, he correctly
predicted an eclipse of the sun.
• Until Thales, the world and the universe
were explained mythologically
• found a way to calculate the height of the
pyramids by measuring their shadow and
calculated the distance of a ship at sea
from observations taken from two points
on land
Hippocrates
Key points about Hippocrates
• Founder of medicine
• Regarded as the greatest physician of his
time
• Believed that illness had a physical and a
rational explanation
• He rejected the views of his time. These
views considered illness to be caused by
superstitions and by possession of evil
spirits and disfavor of the gods.
Hippocrates continued..
• belief that the body must
be treated as a whole and
not just a series of parts
• founded a medical school
on the island of Cos,
Greece and began
teaching his ideas
• developed an Oath of
Medical Ethics for
physicians to follow. This
Oath is taken by
physicians today as they
begin their medical
practice
Caduceus
Hippocratic oath