The significance of Hippocrates, the ‘father of medicine’, to ancient medicine, and to medicine in subsequent historical periods up to the present day cannot be denied. It is fitting, then, that the latest instalment in the Cambridge Companion series should focus on him (or perhaps, to be more accurate, ‘him’). It is also fitting that, in following R.J. Hankinson's The Cambridge Companion to Galen, first published over a decade ago in 2008, it demonstrates some welcome progress in the sub-discipline of ancient medical history in several ways. First, this volume's contributors are more diverse, and, with the exception of Pormann himself, who authors the volume's introduction and one subsequent chapter, none of the scholars contribute more than one chapter, thus focusing their attention instead on the areas that are most appropriate to their areas of research expertise and providing considerable diversity in their scholarly approaches. Second, the scope of this volume is much broader, both thematically and chronologically, than its predecessor, with a considerable amount of attention paid to the reception of Hippocrates and the Hippocratic Corpus in later periods of history and cultural milieus.

The brief preface summarises the cultural importance of Hippocrates and the Hippocratic Corpus, and offers an overview of the project's genesis, gestation and development. The helpful ‘Notes on Citations’ explains the systems of referencing and the main critical editions employed, and this will be particularly useful to student users of the volume, who may not have encountered such complexities before.

The volume proper comprises sixteen chapters. Pormann's introduction provides an overview of recent scholarly activity in the area of ‘Hippocratic studies’, making it clear that there is little consensus to be had, flagging up for the reader that the volume contains diverse approaches to the subject and concluding that there is a lot more work to be done. E. Craik's ‘The “Hippocratic Question” and the Nature of the Hippocratic Corpus’ makes very clear the dearth of factual information available to scholars, questions whether the term the ‘Hippocratic Collection’ might be more appropriate for us to use than the ‘Hippocratic Corpus’ and suggests that the often-cited ancient literary evidence for Hippocrates is more useful for its insight into contemporary medicines than anything else. J. Jouanna's ‘Textual History’ is the first such chapter to be included in a Cambridge Companion, and it presents an invaluable chronological survey of the texts, an explanation of the process involved in editing them and echoes Pormann's assessment of the work that has still to be done with particular reference to the need for new critical editions.

There follows a series of thematic chapters, each examining a particular aspect of the Hippocratic Corpus’ content. B. Holmes's ‘Body’ provides context for what the ancient Greeks prior to Hippocrates understood the body to be before considering what the Hippocratic understanding of the body was, making it clear that the ancient body did not exist in isolation but rather was a conceptual object. R.J. Hankinson's ‘Aetiology’ considers what the Hippocratics considered the causes of health and disease to be, observes the importance that they imparted to the concept of balance and notes that, while there are contradictions within the texts regarding their theories, some general commonalities are clear. L. Perilli's ‘Epistemologies’ makes its thesis clear in its title: there is not one Hippocratic epistemology, rather there are several, and the chapter proceeds to go through them. K.-H. Leven's ‘Ethics and Deontology’ peruses the Hippocratic texts that deal specifically with these topics and examines ancient medicine as an art. The chapter concludes by paying particular attention to the Hippocratic Oath, but determines that, due to the fact that it only really came to be considered part of the Hippocratic Corpus in late antiquity, this famous text is largely useless for attempting to reconstruct attitudes to professional ethics prior to that. A. Roselli's ‘Nosology’ surveys the Hippocratic Corpus’ nosological texts and observes that considerable progress can be made in understanding the Hippocratic system of medicine and other systems of medicine in use in the ancient Near East if there is dialogue between scholars working in different academic disciplines. L. Totelin's ‘Therapeutics’ explores the relationship and interplay between dietetics and pharmacology, particularly in the gynaecological texts, and the creation of what was essentially a new type of medicine. M. Witt's ‘Surgery’ considers the Hippocratic Corpus’ distinct set of surgical treatises and posits that what survives are perhaps fragments of a much more comprehensive work. It is possible to differentiate between trauma surgery and non-trauma surgery, although these divisions are not represented equally, with far more evidence surviving for bone surgery than soft tissue surgery. L. Dean-Jones's ‘Female Patients’ turns to the Hippocratic Corpus’ gynaecological treatises and considers whether the Hippocratics viewed women as being similar or different to men to explore how female health was maintained. C. Thumiger's ‘Doctors and Patients’ focuses on medical encounters and explores the relationship between the ancient doctors and their patients, whether male or female, cautioning that we should not attempt to judge this by modern standards.

The final part investigates the reception of the Hippocratic Corpus in classical antiquity and beyond. V. Boudon-Millot's ‘Galen's Hippocrates’ covers the commentaries written on the Hippocratic treatises and the commentators themselves, up to and including Galen. From viewing these, it is clear that from relatively early on there were ongoing battles regarding the interpretation of the texts and disagreements regarding the authenticity of the texts, and it is fair to say that Galen is responsible for Hippocrates’ legacy as we have it today. D. Manetti's ‘Late Antiquity’ focuses on the second to the sixth centuries ce and tracks the reception of different aspects of the Hippocratic Corpus (i.e. biography, letters, wisdom, sayings), in the process highlighting significant regional differences in reception. Pormann's ‘Arabo-Islamic Tradition’ considers how Hippocrates became the most famous Greek doctor in the Arabic world, surveys the manner in which key Hippocratic texts were translated and transmitted into Syriac and Arabic, and concludes by focusing on the influence of three particularly significant texts. D. Cantor's ‘Western Medicine since the Renaissance’ brings the volume to a close by observing that the meagre factual details available to us leave a vacuum and ensure the malleability of Hippocrates, facilitating creative reinventions of both the man and the works.

One last thoughtful inclusion is an appendix that helpfully lists the English and Latin titles of each of the Hippocratic treatises, their abbreviations, the numbers allocated to them in the two recent surveys undertaken by Craik and Jouanna, their position in the standard edition of the texts by E. Littré and details of the English translations, where available.

This volume is a useful addition to entry-level scholarship on Hippocrates and the Hippocratic Corpus, and it will be invaluable to undergraduate and postgraduate students attempting to get to grips with this fundamental aspect of the lively sub-discipline of ancient medicine for the first time. A key strength is the way that it seeks to situate Hippocrates and the Hippocratic Corpus firmly within their historical, social and cultural contexts, with contributors frequently moving beyond the texts to consider how the theories they espouse might have worked in practice in the ancient medical marketplace. It will certainly supplement previously published work on the historicity of Hippocrates, inventories of the texts and the reception of Hippocrates and the Hippocratic Corpus (see, e.g., on Hippocrates: J. Jouanna, Hippocrates [2001], J.R. Pinault, Hippocratic Lives and Legends [1992]; on the Hippocratic Corpus: E.M. Craik, The ‘Hippocratic’ Corpus: Content and Context [2014]; on the reception of Hippocrates and the Hippocratic Corpus: H. King, Hippocrates Now: The ‘Father of Medicine’ in the Internet Age [2019]). Efforts have been made to make sure a variety of different aspects of the Hippocratic Corpus have received attention, but it is still somewhat unfortunate that over the course of the volume certain texts receive far more coverage than others, yet such unequal attention is sadly inevitable, reflecting the unequal amounts of influence that different parts of the Corpus have exerted at various points in time. And, after all, as Pormann and a number of his contributors state at various points, there is still far more work to be done. Hopefully, this Companion will serve as a gateway to future generations of classicists and historians of medicine and encourage them to undertake it.