ANCIENT MEDICINE.

AUTHOR: Langley, Andrew

SUMMARY :

This book wants to explain how we humans have come to fight different challenges
developed through history, and when and how we started living and forming different
communities, and how doctors show how diseases could have their own natural, not
supernatural, causes, and therefore could be treated by natural and prevented methods
improving public health. Another thing that we can see in the book is how shamans and
pagan priests used a mixture of rituals and medical techniques to cure ailments. Herbs and
prayer were commonly used for healing, and although Eastern practitioners certainly
contributed greatly and participated in the exchange of knowledge along the ancient Silk
Road.
Physiotherapy and heat therapy were used to treat or cure aches and pains, and
ancient Egyptian medicine included repairing and immobilizing broken bones in the human
body. Anecdotal evidence shows that ancient Egyptian physicians adopted a code of ethics
centuries before the Hippocratic Oath in which they could revise certain things.
The medicines and herbs used by Egyptian doctors is remarkable. While some of
the more extravagant herbal cures had little effect, many of the herbs they used have proven
to have positive effects on ailments and various diseases and are still used by modern
herbalists thousands of years later.