 Aristotle is properly recognized as the originator of the scientific study of life. This is true despite the fact that many earlier Greek natural philosophers occasionally speculated on the origins of living things and much of the Hippocratic medical corpus, which was written before or during Aristotle’s lifetime, displays a serious interest in human anatomy, physiology and pathology. And Plato has Timaeus, in the eponymous dialogue, devote a considerable part of his speech to the human body and its functions (and malfunctions). Nevertheless, before Aristotle, only a few of the Hippocratic treatises are both systematic and empirical, and their focus is almost exclusively on human health and disease.