Herbalism

There is no actual record of when the use of plants for medicinal purposes first started, although the first generally accepted use of plants as healing agents were depicted in the cave paintings discovered in the Lascaux caves in France, which have been Radiocarbon dated to between 13,000 – 25,000 B.CE.

Over time and with trial and error, a small base of knowledge was acquired within early tribal communities. As this knowledge base expanded over the generations, tribal culture developed into specialized areas. These ‘specialized jobs’ became what are now known as healers or Shaman.

Egyptian Medicine

Medical information contained in the Edwin Smith Papyrus date as early as 3,000 B.C. The earliest surgery was performed in Egypt around 2,750 B.C.

Imhotep in the 3rd dynasty is credited as the founder of ancient Egyptian medicine and as the original author of the Edwin Smith Papyrus, detailing cures, ailment and anatomical observations.

The Edwin Smith Papyrus is regarded as a copy of several earlier works and was written circa 1,600 B.C as an ancient textbook on surgery and describes in exquisite detail in the examination, diagnosis, treatment and prognosis of numerous ailment.

Medical institutions are known to have established in ancient Egypt since as early as the 1st Dynasty. By the time of the 19th Dynasty their employees enjoyed such benefits as medical insurance, pensions, sick leave and worked eight hours per day.

The earliest known physician is also credited to ancient Egypt: Hesrye, ìChief of Dentists and Physicianì for King Djoser in the 27th century B.C. Also the earliest women physician, Peseshet, practiced in Ancient Egypt at the time of the 4th dynasty. Her title was ìLady Overseer of the Lady Physicians.

Indian Medicine

Ayurveda (the science of living), the Vedic system of medicine originating over 3,000 years ago, views health as harmony between body, mind and spirit.

Its two most famous text belong to the schools of Charaka and Sushruta. According to Charaka, health and disease are not predetermined and life may be prolonged by human effort. Sushruta defines the purpose of medicine to cure the diseases of the sick, protect the healthy and to prolong life.

Ayurveda speaks of eight branches: kayachikitsa (internal medicine), shalyachikitsa (surgery including anatomy), shalakyachikitsa (eye, ear, nose and throat diseases), kaumarabhritya (pediatrics), bhutavidya (phychiatry or demonology), agada tantra (toxicology), rasayana (science of rejuvenation) and vajikarana ( the science of fertility).

Before graduation, the student was to pass a test. But the physician was to continue to learn through texts, direct observation (pratyaksha) and through inference (anumana).

In 2001, archeologists studying the remains of two men from Mehgarh, Pakistan, made the discovery that the people of Indus Valley Civilization, even from the early Harappan periods (circa 3,300 B.C), had knowledge of medicine and dentistry.

The physical anthropologist who carried out the examinitions, Professor Andrea Cucina from the University of Missouri-Columbia, made the discovery when he was cleaning the teeth from one of the men.

Chinese Medicine

Chinese also developed a large body of traditional medicine. Much of the philosophy of traditional Chinese medicine derived from empirical observations of disease and illness by Taoist physicians and reflects the classical Chinese belief that individual human experiences express causative principles effective in the environment at all scales.

During the golden age of his reign from 2,696 to 2,598 B.C, as a result of a dialogue with his minister, Ch’I Pai, the Yellow Emperor is supposed by Chinese tradition to have composed his Neijing Suwen or Basic Questions of Internal Medicine.

During the Han dynasty, Chang Chung-Ching, who was mayor of Chang-sha near the end of the second century A.D, wrote a Treatise on Typhoid Fever, which contains the earliest known reference to Neijing Suwen.

The Chin dynasty practitioner and advocate of acupuncture and moxibustion, Huang-fu Mi (215-282 A.D), also quotes the Yellow Emperor in his Chia I Ching, 265 A.D.

During the Tang dynasty, Wang Ping claimed to have located a copy of the originals of the Neijing Suwen, which he expanded and edited substancially.

Early European Medicine

Astrology played a very important part in early Western medicine; most university-educated physicians were trained in at least the basics of astrology to use in their practice. As societies developed in Europe and Asia, belief systems were replaced with a different natural system.

The Greeks, from Hyppocrates, developed a humoral medicine system where treatment was to restore the balance of humours within the body. Ancient Medicine is a treatise on medicine, written roughly 400 B.C by Hyppocrates.

Medieval medicine was an evolving mixture of the scientific and the spiritual. In the early middle ages, following the fall off the Roman Empire, standard medical knowledge was based chiefly upon surviving Greek and Roman texts, preserved in monasteries and elsewhere.

Islamic Medicine

The Islamic World rose to primacy in medical science with such thinkers as Ibn Sina (Avicenna), Ibn Nafis and Rhazes. The first generation of Persian superb physicians were trained at the Academy of Gundishapur, where the teaching hospital was the first invented.

The Comprehensive Book of Medicine (Large Comprehensive, Hawi or “al-Hawi” or “The Continence”) was written by the Iranian chemist Rhazes (known also as Razi), the “Large Comprehensive” was the most sought after of all his compositions.

The “Kitab fi al-jadari wa-al-hasbah” by Rhazes, with its introduction on measles and smallpox was also very influential in Europe.

The Mutazilite philosopher and doctor Ibn Sina was another influential figure. His The Canon of Medicine, sometimes considered the most famous book in the history of medicine, remained a standard text in Europe up until its Age of Enlightenment and the renewal of the Islamic tradition of scientific medicine.

Ibn Nafis described human blood circulation. This discovery would be rediscovered or perhaps merely demonstrated, by William Harvey in 1628, who generally receives the credit in Western history.

Modern Medicine

Medicine was revolutionized in the 18th century and beyond by advances in chemistry and laboratory techniques and equipment, old ideas of infectious disease epidemiology were replaced with bacteriology.

Ignaz Semmelweis in 1847 dramatically reduced the death rate of new mothers from childbed fever by the simple experiment of requiring physicians to wash their hands before attending to women in childbirth.

His discovery predated the germ theory of disease. However, his discoveries were not appreciated by his contemporaries and came into use only with discoveries of British surgeon Joseph Lister, who in 1865 proved the principles of antiseptic.

His work is based on the very important discoveries made by French biologist Louis Pasteur who was able to link some microorganisms with disease.

This brought a revolution in medicine. He also devised one of the most important methods in preventive medicine, when in 1880 he produced the vaccine against rabies.

Pasteur also invented the process of pasteurization to help prevent the spread of disease through milk and other foods, whom it’s named after.

Also Pasteur was an individual worker, an unlike his contemporary Robert Koch, regardless, Pasteur was a man who thought laterally and his vaccination for Rabies, was indeed a milestone, but no one still understood in the 1880s the mechanisms for such immunity.

The role of womankind was increasingly founded by the likes of Elizabeth Blackwell, Elizabeth Garret, Florence Nightingale, etc. They showed a previously a male dominated profession, the elemental role of nursing in lessening the aggravation of patient mortality, resulting from lack of hygiene and nutrition. Nightingale, set up the St Thomas hospital, post-Crimea, in 1852.

Robert Koch is considered one of the founders of bacteriology. He is famous for the discovery of the tubercle bacillus (1883) and for his development of Koch’s postulates.

It was not until the 20th century that there was a true breakthrough in medicine, with great advances in pharmacology and surgery. For the great war spurred the usage of Rontgen’s X-ray and the electrocardiograph, for the monitoring of internal bodily problems.

However, this was overshadowed by the remarkable mass production of penicillium antibiotic, which was a result of government and public pressure. The antibiotic prevented the deaths of thousands during the conquest of Vichy France in 1944. The 20th century witnessed a shift from a master-apprentice paradigm of teaching of clinical medicine to a more “democratic” system of medical schools.

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