Hippocrates

About Hippocrates

Hippocrates, born around -460, is regarded as the "Father of Medicine" and holds the #102 rank in MIT’s Historical Popularity Index, reflecting his monumental influence on Western medical practice. His primary contribution was shifting medicine from superstition to a scientific discipline, championing observation and clinical practice over supernatural explanations. Although the specific authorship of many texts is debated, the Hippocratic Corpus codified medical ethics and clinical methods that remained foundational for millennia.

For a figure of such profound historical importance, Hippocrates garners modest attention in the modern digital sphere. In 2025, his Wikipedia page received an annualized 458K views, resulting in an Attention Gap of approximately 1x-meaning his modern attention is relatively proportional to his historical rank, unlike many figures whose gap is much wider. This figure's attention is not suffering the most severe decay; however, it is useful to note that the highly influential physician Florence Nightingale, ranked #650, drew 1.5M views in the same year.

The data indicates a slight, but notable, decline in contemporary interest: Hippocrates saw a 20.4% year-over-year drop in views, coupled with an 11% decrease in momentum between Q1 and Q3 of 2025, suggesting a gradual fading from the forefront of online curiosity.