Credit: Painting by Robert A. Thom, digital image provided by University of Michigan
This image from the medical history series painted by Robert A. Thom is titled: Hippocrates: Medicine Becomes a Science. The ancient Greek physician Hippocrates of Cos, born around 460 B.C.E., is considered a founding father of medicine, and a key figure in medicine's development as a profession and a systemic science separate from others. He is the namesake for the Hippocratic Oath, sworn by new physicians for centuries, and is considered a paragon of ancient physicians. This painting illustrates him in both a metaphorically and literally fatherly role, reassuring the worried mother of a boy who has fallen ill, while reassuring the boy with a hand on his shoulder and simultaneously feeling the "hypochondrium", or region near the spleen just below the ribs, where the ancient Greeks believed many illnesses began.