A Dummies Guide to Medicine in Ancient Greece
A Dummies guide to medicine in Ancient Greece
When was Ancient Greece?
Ancient Greece emerged from about 800BC and lasted until it was subsumed into the Roman Empire in 148 AD. Even after this date Greek culture was strong.
How was Ancient Greece organised?
Unlike Egypt, Ancient Greece was not one kingdom. Greece was a collection of independent city-states. These city states had their own leaders and government. What they shared was a common culture, though this didn’t stop them falling out and fighting!
What was Greek Culture like then?
The Greeks are renowned for having been great thinkers. Philosophy prospered in these city states as people developed new ideas and looked to explain them. This led to many people thinking of ways in which the human body worked and of reasons for the illnesses and diseases that plagued the Ancient World.
The Greeks also communicated with people from other civilisations and were open to new ideas. They were aware of the beliefs of the Ancient Egyptians and took on board many of the natural elements of the Egyptian culture.
Who were these philosophers and what did they achieve?
There were many Greek philosophers. The most significant ones for this course were Hippocrates and Aristotle.
Aristotle was born in 384 BC. He developed a theory that linked the seasons to different symptoms of disease. Using natural beliefs he developed these links into a theory based on liquids in the body and the way that they balanced. This theory became known as the theory of the four humors.
Hippocrates based many of his ideas on the work that Aristotle had conducted. He developed his theory of the four humours and made the links between the seasons, fluids and imbalances very clear. This led to the development of theories about how to treat disease.
Hippocrates’ contribution to Medicine is immense. He wrote hundreds of articles about health, known collectively as the Hippocratic Corpus and is remembered now as being ‘The Father of Medicine’. Perhaps the biggest contribution he made was the development of something called Clinical Observation. Here he devised a system for doctors to follow when a patient visited them. He encouraged careful observation of the patient and the way that an illness progressed. This would lead to an understanding of the ways in which an illness should be treated and a more effective diagnosis and treatment being made.
What about Religion, did they just forget about it?
Not all Greeks were philosophers, nor did everyone look for a natural cause of disease. Many people remained very spiritual in their beliefs about the cause of disease. One of the best examples of this continued belief is the Cult of Asclepios.
Asclepios was a Greek god of health. People believed that diseases were sent by him and that in order to cure themselves they needed to pray to him and worship him. To do this they visited temples dedicated to his name. At these temples a number of rituals would take place. Many of these are now known to be good for improving the health of people: for example, they washed and bathed prior to praying, they ate healthily and used soothing lotions and relaxing methods to alleviate pain. Whilst these were often done to please the god, it shows that natural forms of medicine were being adopted alongside supernatural forms of medicine to treat people.
Asclepions were extremely popular. Several huge temple complexes were built throughout Greece and the cult spread as far as Rome at the height of the Roman Empire.
