Occidental Medicine History (1/2)

Modern medical science rests upon a Greek foundation. The Naturalist philosophers were the first to separate medicine from any divine influences, during the sixth century B.C.

 Among these pioneers, we can distinguish:

- Pythagore who defined 4 components of our body: air, water, fire and ground,

- Alcméon who was the first to dissect animals and discovered the optic nerves.

 

We have to wait one century for Hippocrates drawing up a medical protocol for patients. Today, all physicians swear on the text of a man who thought that we were a set of various energies and elements:

- four fundamental elements (fire, water, ground and air),

- four characters (heat, cold, dryness and the wet one),

- four moods (blood, the lymph or phlegm, the yellow bile and the black bile).

The first human dissections took place during the Third century B.C with Alexandrian anatomists. They were then able to study neurology, vascular system and brain. Nevertheless, Greeks were always impregnated of mysticism and mythology. They mainly refused these discoveries which upset their culture.

Roman Empire rise exported and spread this new medicine all over the “Old world”. Gynaecology and obstetrics were then developed, with the first sign of possible abortion.

It is during the first century that Celse writes the first complete work on medicine. It distinguishes three types of care:

- diet therapy,

- drug therapy,

- surgical operation.

First hospitals appeared in , during the fourth century. Opened thanks to Christian charity, they especially look after leprosy. The first-, most famous- and best medicine schools were located in Arabian lands.