In ancient times, before Hippocrates, disease and illness were attributed as a sign of divine dismay, and the Gods needed to be appeased to achieve a cure. Hippocrates and his followers showed courage in breaking away from this paradigm. They moved away from the divine and supernatural, to focus on the biology of the body. In the process they put the patient at the centre of their focus. They collected detailed case histories, dismissed religious and supernatural explanations and developed remedies in the form of diets, exercise and mixed minerals and herbs based on their understanding of ill health.