Hippocrates, the “Father of Medicine,” was born at Cos,[384] 460 B.C. On his father’s side he was believed to be descended from Æsculapius, and through his mother from Hercules. A member of the family of the Asclepiadæ, of a descent of three hundred years, he had the advantage of studying medicine under his father, Heraclides, in the Asclepion of Cos. Herodicus of Selymbria taught him medical gymnastics, and Democritus of Abdera and Gorgias of Leontini were his masters in literature and philosophy. He travelled widely, and taught and practised at Athens, dying at an age variously stated as 85, 90, 104, and 109. Fortunate in the opportunities offered by his birth and position, he was still more fortunate in his time—the age of Pericles—in which Greece reached its noblest development, and the arts and sciences achieved their greatest triumphs. It was the age of Socrates, Plato, Xenophon, Euripides, Sophocles, Æschylus, Pindar, Aristophanes, Herodotus, Thucydides, and Phidias. Philosophy, poetry, literature, and sculpture found in these great minds their most perfect exponents. Medicine, in the person of Hippocrates, was to find its first and most distinguished author-physician. The Father of Medicine was therefore the worthy product of his remarkable age. The genius which culminated in the works of the golden age of Greece could scarcely have left medicine without her Hippocrates; the harmony otherwise would have been incomplete. The following genealogy of Hippocrates has been given by Tzetzes, but Mr. Grote says it is wholly mythical:— Æsculapius was the father of Podalirius, who was the father of Hippolochus, who was the father of Sostratus, who was the father of Cleomyttades, who was the father of Theodorus, who was the father of Sostratus II., who was the father of Theodorus II., who was the father of Sostratus III., who was the father of Nebrus, who was the father of Gnosidicus, who was the father of Hippocrates I., who was the father of Heraclides, who was the father of Hippocrates II., otherwise called the Great Hippocrates.