ABSTRACT
The recent enthusiasm for computer games may not seem the most obvious place to begin a book on the father of medicine. But, at the end of the twentieth century, Hippocrates found his way into those imaginary worlds, and in such a bewildering variety of guises! In the late 1990s he was the joint ruler of the Beastmaker Mountain, a medical swordfish, a beast or monster, the member of an Immortal Staff, and the founder of the Hippocrates Circle which manipulated medical technology for the purposes of world domination. His name was adopted by game players in at least three role-playing games; there were starships called Hippocrates in two others, and the Hippocrates Ambulance ran through another. Elsewhere, he appeared in a virtual version of Dante’s Hell, provided clues as to the rescue of a kidnap victim, and inspired a group called the healercraft. One game claimed to be based on his insights into personality type; and he was cited in instructions on how to decide when a player should go mad. Such were some of the uses of Hippocrates at the turn of the millennium.1
