Hippocrates holding his book, Aphorisms, which opens with his most famous one: "Art is long, life short." By "art," he means the technique or craft of being a doctor. Hippocrates (460-370 BC) was a Greek physician who is generally considered to be the father of medicine, although very little is known of him. His influence survives in the Hippocratic oath, a code of medical ethics some medical students take on completion of their training. He supposedly founded a medical school on the Aegean island of Kos and advocated a rational approach to medicine, believing that disease was caused by physical phenomena and not interference from the gods.