History of Medicine

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

As the world learns a new way of life involving self-isolation amid the global spread of coronavirus, the concept of quarantine has been brought to the forefront. According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, quarantine means “to put or hold in isolation to prevent the spread of disease” and that is exactly what we are experiencing right now. Many countries and several states in the U.S. have imposed mandatory isolation of its population to curb the spread of the coronavirus. Although the mass quarantine imposed today might be unprecedented in history, quarantine is certainly not a new concept. The word itself is derived from "quaranta giorni", which in Italian means 40 days. It originated sometime in the mid-14th century, when all ships coming into Venice were isolated before passengers and crew were allowed to disembark during the Black Death plague epidemic. However, the practice of quarantine dates further back, all the way to ancient times. Ancient Greeks were isolating si

Sticking with the wonderful theme of alcohol, here’s a look at wine in ancient medicine. Adapted again from  Tom Standage’s A History of the World in 6 Glasses , but also other sources that have studied the use of wine in ancient civilizations. Although beer is thought to be the oldest drink consumed by humans, wine has an equally ancient history. The only difference is that it took longer for wine to become a common drink. The origin of wine has been traced back to the Neolithic Period, somewhere between 9000 and 4000 BCE, in the Zagros Mountains in present-day Iran and Armenia. Unlike beer, which was drunk by both the rich and the poor, wine was a status symbol associated with wealth and power. It was only consumed by those who could afford the expensive beverage, namely kings and noble men in ancient Greece. It was the Romans who transformed it from a luxury drink to one for the masses. It has been well known since the time of the ancient Greeks that wine can help relax and re

As the world celebrates a muted Saint Patrick’s Day today, thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, here’s a blog dedicated to all beer lovers around the world.  I first read about the use of beer in the ancient world during my summer reading assignment for history,  A History of the World in 6 Glasses,  by Tom Standage. It is a fantastic read and highly recommended, not just for history buffs but for anyone who likes reading about history in an informal and interesting way. Starting with a little history of Saint Patrick’s Day: it was a religious festival marking the arrival of Christianity in Ireland which was made into an official feast day. The festival has evolved into a day of revelry during which vast amounts of alcohol, particularly beer, are consumed. So in honor of Saint Patrick’s Day, here's a short history of beer and its use in ancient times for much more than just getting drunk.  Beer was one of the oldest beverages consumed by humans, second only to water. With

As the possibility of a major coronavirus outbreak in the U.S. turns to reality, I figured it would be useful to do more research into the history and evolution of the family of viruses that coronavirus belongs to— influenza. One of the oldest diseases in mankind’s history dating back 2400 years, the flu is caused by the influenza virus, which was isolated only in the 1930s after the  1918 Spanish flu, the  biggest flu pandemic in history. This pandemic killed over half a million people in the United States and around 50 million (some estimates are as high as 100 million) worldwide. The Spanish flu had a mortality rate between 2-20% and it lowered the average life expectancy of the American population by more than 12 years. Compared to that flu outbreak, the current coronavirus pandemic pales in significance, surely thanks to our current knowledge of epidemiology and the proactive measures taken by governments to curb the spread of the virus, rather than any change in the lethal nature

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