Medicine in Antiquity

Antiquity (ca. 4000 BC to 476 AD)

Meerim Dzholochieva, IUK
 Medicine in Antiquity

 Mesopotamian Medicine
 Egyptian Medicine
 Greek and Greco-Roman Medicine
Mesopotamian Civilization
Flat land between Euphrates
and Tigris; humid climate,
clear skies, clay soil
(bricks); peopled by Semites.

Sumer, cuneiform
deciphered by Grotefend in
Perspolis,
Epic of Gilgamish
Akkad, language akin to
Aramean/Phenician
(Canaanite)
Babylon
Babylon succeeded Sumer and
Akkad, a great metropolis;
later defeated by Assyria
Code of laws promulgated by
Hammurabi (ca. 1800 BC)
Sexagesimal and positional
system (astronomy/astrology)
Marduk chief god, also called
Bel, successor to Sumerian
Enlil
Magico-religious practices:
incantation and divination;
MESOPOTAMIAN MEDICINE
Supernatural powers are
involved in afflictions of
mankinds
Vast number of diseases
recognized
Collaboration between
asipu (priest)
and asu (physician)
Code of Hammurabi
Assurbanipal Library in
Nineva
some 800 medical
texts
Rich botanical materia
medica
CODE OF HAMMURABI
8’ stele unearthed at Susa,
Persia, in 1902--said to have
come down from Sun God.
Earliest codification of laws:
monument lists 282 laws in 16
columns with reverse 28
columns; several apply to
physicians (asu), cow/sheep
healers, barbers
Fees and penalties set according
to
3 classes (nobles,
commoners and slaves)
No penalties for priestly-medical
mismanagement
Egyptian Medicine
 Many Ancient Egypt
doctors and priests
believed that disease was
caused by spiritual
beings. When no-one
could explain why
someone had a disease,
spells and magical
potions were used to
drive out the spirits.
 Ancient papyrus inform us that the
Ancient Egyptians were discovering
things about how the human body worked
and they knew that the heart, pulse rates,
blood and air were important to the
workings of the human body. A heart that
beat feebly told doctors that the patient
had problems.
EGYPTIAN MEDICINE
Embers Papyrus (Leipzig): emphasizes magical
spells, with large section on diseases of the gut
and intestinal worms.
Metu, a system of vessels and canals
originating in the heart and carrying air and
liquids to all parts of the body, and converging to
the anus.
Whedu, concept of decay associated with
feces.
Large number of drugs of vegetable,
botanical and mineral origin.
EGYPTIAN MEDICINE (cont.)
 Kahun Gynecological Papyrus (London): almost entirely
devoted to gynecological organs, including test for
pregnancy (onion implanted in the flesh, positive outcome
determined by odor in nose).
 Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus (ed. J. H. Breasted, Univ. of
Chicago Press, 1930).
Orderly arrangement of cases from head to spinal
vertebra. Offers brief clinical description, diagnosis and
treatment; surprisingly devoid of magico-religious
formulae.
Case 45: first description of a cancer (male breast)
EGYPTIAN MEDICINE (cont.)
 Mummies:
Parasitic infestations (calcified eggs of
shistosomiasis and preserved tapeworms
Evidence of tuberculosis, Pott’s disease of
the spine
Arthritis, atherosclerosis, gallstones
Pneumonia, pleurisy, lung abscesses
Splenomegaly
Renal atrophy
Greeks and Romans
 Gods dominated the lives of the Greeks.
Natural occurrences were explained away by
using gods. This, however, did not occur in
medicine where Ancient Greek physicians
tried to find a natural explanation as to why
someone got ill and died.
Hippocrates
A Greek doctor whose name was
Hippocrates, recorded all the
illnesses he encountered and
the treatments he used. These
records became the basis of
the Greek and Roman medical
education.

He first said about the

importance of observation in
the diagnosis of diseases :
 "First of all the doctor should look at the
patient’s face. If he looks his usual self this is
a good sign. If not, however, the following are
bad signs – sharp nose, hollow eyes, cold
ears, dry skin on the forehead, strange face
colour such as green, black, red or lead
coloured. If the face is like this at the
beginning of the illness, the doctor must ask
the patient if he has lost sleep, or had
diarrhoea, or not eaten." 
From "On forecasting diseases".
Also, Hippocrates proposed the theory of
the four humors - the changes in each can
be cause of disease.
This scientific approach went against the
thinking of the time which explained the
causes of diseases as being punishments
from the Gods.
 Four humors Theory
Blood gave a person a lively personality and
lots of energy. They would enjoy life and the
arts.
Phlegm made a person feel lethargic or have a
dull personality.
Black bile caused depression and sadness
Yellow bile influenced a person's
temperament. It caused anger and a fiery
temper.
 Roman Medicine
 The Romans conquered the Greeks and this brought a
lot of their ideas about healthcare into use across the
Roman empire.
 Throughout the Roman world, temples were made for
Aesculapius, the god of medicine, and his daughter
Hygieia, the goddess of healing. People believed that
their dreams might tell them cures for their illnesses,
and they slept in shrines hoping that it might happen. If
they were really cured, the people gave offerings. The
offerings may have been a stone model of the part of
the body that was cured, or they might have been
statues of the gods themselves.
 Roman Medicine (cont.)
 They developed new instruments and much of
their knowledge was gained treating casualties
in the many wars of conquest that the Romans
fought.
 Military settlements had hospitals to treat
soldiers and army surgeons became proficient in
removing arrows and they could stitch wounds.
Records also show that they were able to treat
bladder stones, hernias, and cataracts
 CLAUDIUS GALEN

Claudius Galen, was physician to five Roman

emperors. He was a teacher, philosopher,
pharmacist and leading scientist of his day.

 The medicine and pathology Galen practiced,

and about which he wrote, were based mainly
on the speculative Hippocratic theories of the
four humors, on sun critical days, and on
fallacious theories regarding pulse and urine.
 CLAUDIUS GALEN
 In the fields of therapy and of pharmacy,
Galen is remembered mainly for his
schematism and extremely complex
prescriptions, sometimes containing dozens
of ingredients. Formulas of the type make up
a class of pharmaceuticals still called
“galenicals.”
 He was extremely interested in hygiene and
prevention of disease, the importance of
which he put above treatment, and about
which he wrote several books.
 CLAUDIUS GALEN
 Galen emphasised the need to make clinical
observations before devising a treatment to
combat the symptoms At that time, it was
illegal to dissect human bodies and so he
dissected animals to find out how their
bodies worked. This knowledge helped
Roman doctors to improve their techniques
in surgery.
Thank you