Origin of the Word Vaccine

Even though the process of vaccination can be traced back to ancient Indian and Chinese civilizations (as I wrote in my earlier post on history of vaccines), the name, like so many other words in the English language, has a Latin root.

Vaccine is derived from the Latin vaccinus, which means "of or belonging to cows". The first western vaccine was developed by English physician Edward Jenner using cow pox, which was called vaccinae. Jenner found that an injection of material taken from cowpox sores protected a person from getting small pox in the future. Because it was taken from cows (vacca in Latin), it came to be called vaccinus, which led to the adjective, vaccinae, and then to vaccine in English.

Cowpox virus

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Rx Symbol

Have you ever wondered why medicines are denoted with an ℞ or Rx symbol? There are actually many theories about its origin but the most common one is that the symbol for prescriptions originated from the "Eye of Horus", which was an ancient Egyptian symbol associated with healing powers. According to Egyptian mythology, Horus lost his eye in battle but his mom used her powers to restore his eye, hence it became a symbol of healing. Eye of Horus In the 2 nd century, Greek physician Galen adapted this symbol to impress his patients. Galen’s influence on medicine was so strong that even the symbol was borrowed through the centuries and it eventually evolved into the modern symbol Rx (the eye of Horus kinda looks like an Rx). Other theories place its origin in Latin and Roman times. One theory is that Rx was used as an abbreviation of the Latin word recipere , meaning “to prepare,” which physicians wrote on medical prescriptions. Yet another theory points to the similarity of...

Hippocrates: Father of Medicine

Another important person in Greek medicine is Hippocrates. Hippocrates is considered the father of modern medicine who continues to influence medicine more than 2000 years later. Although he is as revered as Asclepius, they have very different origins. While Asclepius is a mythological character, considered to be descended from God, Hippocrates is very much a historical figure, whose origin and life is recorded in history. Hippocrates lived from 460 to 375 BCE during the Classical Greece period and practiced medicine in Greece. His contribution to western medicine is rivaled by none other, and his collection of works covers almost every aspect of disease and medicine including infection, hygiene, epidemiology and the human immune system. Bust of Hippocrates Also, unlike Asclepius, Hippocrates practiced medicine as a science, not as divine magic. He was one of the first to separate religion from medicine, and sought to match treatment with symptoms. His observations in the ...

World's First Physicians

Today, March 30, is celebrated as National Doctors' Day to honor the noble profession and show our gratitude to the many doctors who show up to work for a greater calling than most professions. On this day, I thought it would be fitting to honor the first doctors in history, those who paved the way for the medical profession to become a sought-after career path for people like me. I thought I would explore the earliest physicians known to the different ancient civilizations that I have covered in this blog and their place in history. Looking at the list of ancient physicians, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ancient_physicians), I found the earliest known physician to be Egyptian, so let's start with that. Around the same time, medicine was developing as a science in India too. Ancient Greece and China appear to have dedicated medical professionals almost 2000 years later. Egypt: The oldest known Egyptian physician is Imhotep, who lived around 2700 BCE . He was worshippe...

History of Medicine

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