Who is known as the Father of Medicine?

• A. Hippocrates
• B. John Graunt
• C. William Farr
• D. Louis Pasteur

Answer: (A)

The main idea here is recognizing who is traditionally credited with establishing medicine as a disciplined, observational practice. Hippocrates is known as the Father of Medicine because he helped shift medicine from superstition to a systematic profession grounded in careful patient observation, documentation, and natural explanations for disease. His work and the ideas attributed to the Hippocratic Corpus promoted clinical thinking, prognosis, ethical standards, and a more methodical approach to healing—principles that underlie modern medical practice and still echo in today’s medical ethics, including the enduring symbolism of the Hippocratic Oath.

John Graunt is celebrated for early work in statistics and the study of populations, which laid foundations for demography and public health analytics, not for shaping the practice of medicine itself. William Farr contributed to epidemiology and vital statistics in the 19th century, further advancing public health data, but the title of Father of Medicine goes to Hippocrates. Louis Pasteur revolutionized microbiology and germ theory, transforming understanding of infectious disease, yet the designation specifically honors Hippocrates’ broader early influence on medical thinking and ethics.