History of Medicine

As we come to accept that the great covid-19 pandemic which started off as an epidemic is slowly becoming  endemic , it's worth noting the new additions to our vocabulary. These words that were likely "all Greek to you" before 2020, are indeed just that -- they are all in fact derived from ancient Greek! The word  epidemic was in use since at least the time of Homer which is around 600 BCE, and is mentioned in the Odyssey to mean "who is back home" or "who is in his country." However, it was first introduced to medical jargon, along with its closely associated words pandemic and endemic , by the ancient Greek doctor, Hippocrates.    Hippocrates' treatise on Epidemics  Evolution of the term Epidemics. Credit: Paul Martin And not just these but several other words that we have come to associate with the current pandemic (as well as other diseases) were also coined by Hippocrates and his medical school such as: Cytokine Chronic Resolution Peak Acute

I have previously written about the ancient medical science of India called Ayurveda. Tracing its roots back to 6000 BCE (unofficially), Ayurveda is older than the Classical civilizations and thus predates Greek medicine. Ayurveda is still in practice in many parts of India as alternative medicine. But I recently discovered there is another form of alternative medicine in India called Unani medicine. I first heard about it from a Harvard professor and I was embarrassed to admit I hadn't heard of it, so I decided to dig deeper and what I found is quite interesting. Turns out it is still used in practice today as one of the 5 traditional medical sciences recognized by the Indian government as AYUSH ( Ayurveda, Yoga, Unani, Siddhi, Homeopathy).   Interestingly, Unani medicine is none other than ancient Greek medicine practiced by Hippocrates and Galen. In fact, Unani means "Greek" in Arabic. Unani medicine was introduced in India around the tenth century by Arab and Persian

Even though Cajal is considered the father of neuroscience, his contribution came centuries after the first insights into the nervous system. As I wrote in my earlier posts, ancient doctors pondered over the nervous system, trying to understand what controlled the mind and body. Of these doctors, one that stands out is Galen, whose contribution to the understanding of the nervous system was fundamental to neuroscience. Through anatomical experiments, Galen was the first to observe and teach the functioning of nerves in the body. For these experiments, which he wasn’t shy about demonstrating to the public, Galen is regarded as the founder of experimental physiology. Galen is considered one of the most prominent and influential doctors in history, second only to Hippocrates. Galen was a staunch follower of Hippocrates and helped spread his teachings from Greece to the vast Roman Empire. Claudius Galenus, commonly know as Galen, was born in 129 AD in Pergamum in modern-day Turkey to a

Coronavirus has become a household name after the current COVID-19 outbreak. The virus has been identified as a positive sense single-stranded RNA virus and has the technical name, SARS-CoV2. It is also well known that it is highly contagious and is transmitted between humans through coughing and sneezing via respiratory droplets. Scientists have a pretty good understanding of what causes the COVID-19 disease and how it spreads through the population, which makes it easier for people to understand the concept and purpose of social distancing and quarantine. But in ancient times, ideas about the cause of diseases were entirely speculative and there were many interesting theories before the germ theory of diseases was established in the late 1800s. Supernatural Theory Unsurprisingly, the earliest theory was that diseases were caused by supernatural forces. People believed that when gods became angry they unleased their fury upon mankind by sending diseases to cause suffering. For ex

With the recent fear of a coronavirus outbreak, I thought it would be interesting to trace the history of infectious diseases. Infectious diseases date back to the ancient civilizations. The earliest reference to influenza, which the coronavirus is a form of, came from none other than the father of modern medicine, Hippocrates. As early as 412 B.C.,  Hippocrates described a highly contagious disease with flu-like symptoms afflicting residents of Perinthus in northern Greece. It is the first known influenza epidemic in history. The name, influenza , came much later in 1357 AD, when people in Florence named the epidemic “influenza di freddo”, or influence of cold. Infections spread quickly and widely in the ancient world, and influenza was certainly not the first epidemic in history. The Great Plague of Athens in 430-426 BC, caused by an outbreak of typhoid and other diseases, is the earliest known major epidemic. The outbreak came in the middle of the Peloponnesian War between the S