|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Medicine in the Ancient World
| |
|
Posted by Shogun 144 on November 21 2004, 06:10 PM
|
Medicine in the Ancient world was by our standards primitive, but at the same time advanced as well. Today most our knowledge of medicine was first pioneered by the Greek Hippocrates and his students, then further advanced by the Romans, among some of the more famous are Pedanios Dioscorides and Galen. Today most of our modern medicine has its roots in Greek and Roman medicine, which in turn had its roots in Egypt and beyond.
The first forms of medicine first began to appear in Egypt and other areas of the Near East. The first kinds of early medicine began in Egypt, and from there it spread over the Mediterranean area; however the study of medicine first really began to advance when the Greeks began studying it. The first doctors in Greece were also philosophers; some of the more famous of these philosopher-doctors were Alcmaeon of Croton, Empedocles of Sicily, and Anaxagoras of Clazomenae. All of these men heavily influenced Hippocrates later in time.
‘Rational’ medicine as it was called by the Greeks, started with Hippocrates and his students. Hippocrates was of the island of Cos off the coast of Asia Minor, for the most part his entire life has been shrouded in mystery, not much is known of him. What we do know of Hippocrates was that he traveled all over the Greek world teaching his way of thinking, he had a large number of followers by the time of his death .Hippocrates’ legacy on the world of medicine is his writings, the Hippocratic Corpus, which contains all that he wrote. For the most part Hippocrates wrote that medicine should be completely separate from philosophy and religious cults, such as that of Asclepius, to whom healing was contributed. The most important part of the writings to people today is the Hippocratic Oath, which is an oath to use medical skills to only heal, never to harm. Hippocrates wrote that good and bad health was from the balance or imbalance of the ‘Four Humors’ which were phlegm, blood, yellow bile and black bile. Hippocrates also wrote extensively on how to treat broken joints and fractures, as well as on how to perform a surgery correctly. The teachings of Hippocrates went basically unchallenged for the next 2,000 years.
Some advances in medicine were made in Alexandria during the period of great intellectual growth there during the reigns of Ptolemy II and Ptolemy III. During this time the city of Alexandria was the intellectual capital of the world, all of the greatest and brightest minds gathered to the city and doctors were no exception. Two of the greatest medical minds were Herophilos of Chalcedon and Erasistratos of Iulis. Herophilos is famous because he was the first doctor to correctly identify the pulse of one’s heart through the blood. However Herophilos also believed that the pulse was the music of the body, he eventually took this theory to the point where only a skilled musician could understand it. Erasistratos made leaps and bounds in the area of anatomy, and was able to correctly tell some of the different parts of the brain as well as being able to correctly identify some of the different kinds of nerves. A frequent practice in Alexandria that survived for some time afterwards was the taking of dead bodies for dissection to prove a specific theory, this practice was condemned originally, but by the time of Alexander the Great the works of Aristotle had dispelled many of the moral problems of dissection.
Despite all of this however the temple healing cults still existed and was sometimes still preferable to ‘rational’ medicine. Though Hippocrates had hoped to make a permanent split between medicine and religion, medicine was still in some ways tied to religion. The predominate of these healing cults was that of Asclepius, the temples of Asclepius (called Asklepia) were usually situated on the sites of natural health spas throughout the Mediterranean area. We today know a lot about these temple cults because the people who went there left a tablet with a likeness of the healed body part on it hanging on the walls of the temple. The Romans continued this practice in their Empire, spreading it as far as Britain.
In Rome medicine was not really advanced before the arrival of the Greek doctors. Before the first Greek doctors began arriving in force in Rome their medicine was limited to the knowledge of the Etruscans from which they were descended. Early Roman medicine was usually made up of various home remedies that could be grown locally or bought from a neighboring farm. There were no real doctors in Early Rome; medicine was handed out by the Pater Familias, who was the head of the entire family.
Roman medicine increased dramatically after the arrival of the Greek doctors. The first Greek doctor in Rome was Arcagathus, but because of Roman dislike of doctors and Greek culture he soon lost his practice among the Romans. No other doctor would come to Rome for another century, by then the atmosphere was much friendlier, but at first still hostile, later things did change though. Roman doctors (Latin: singular medicus plural: medici) were until the times of the Late Republic viewed as quacks, and because many of them were former slaves they were viewed as a lowly class. The medici eventually proved themselves in the realm of surgery, which is where they really excelled. In the Roman legions the medici were often called upon to treat war wounds, it was in the military that Roman medicine really grew up in. It is interesting to note that there was no separate branch for doctors in the Roman army; they were actually soldiers with medical experience prior to joining. It is believed that only the doctors specially assigned to treating gladiators were superior to the army doctors.
Among the Roman medici there were a few outstanding individuals that deserve mention. One such man was Celsus, who lived in the days of Augustus. Celsus was this period’s preeminent writer of medical texts; most of what we know of medicine up to Celsus’ day comes from his writings. Celsus was also a very good physician; he had thriving practice as a result. Another famous medici was Pedanios Dioscorides. Dioscorides was one of those people who was a doctor before joining the Roman army. While on campaign Dioscorides became quite the accomplished doctor and found many herbal medicines to use. He later wrote a book on his findings; today Pedanios Dioscorides is considered the father of alternate medicine and Rome’s premiere pharmacist. The most famous of all Roman medici however was Galen, whose authority was never challenged for 1,000 years after his death. Galen wrote many books during his lifetime, in some of them he wrote that being a good philosopher was essential to being a good doctor; there was no separating the two he believed. Galen also accused many of his fellow doctors of just being in it for the money, not for the joy of it. Galen is most famous for his study of the human anatomy and in physiology, in which he got a amazing amount of things right, but also a number of things wrong. The ideas of Galen got into the realm of the importance they were given when he moved to Rome and established a great and thriving amongst Rome’s rich and famous, among them were four emperors: Marcus Aurelius, Lucius Verus, Commodus, and Septimius Severus.
In conclusion the doctors of the ancient world were brave pioneers in the realm of medicine and health, as well as in some cases brilliant philosophers. Today we remember many of these ancient doctors in the many fields of modern medicine. |
User Comments:
| Phoenix-TheRealDeal
:: December 8 2004 |
Very interesting treatise on the roots of modern 'western' medicine.  |
| |
| Paal_101
:: December 10 2004 |
| Great article Joshua! |
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
