Ancient greek medicine

[A.Z.K]

why did the greeks make such great advances in the understanding and treatment of medicine and illnesses?

[jno]

they were good at observing and recording and thinking about things, rather than just blaming everything onto the gods and praying for a cure.

http://www.schoolshistory.org.uk/ancientgreece .htm

[Ice-Maiden]

The Egyptians were good as well - just look at their embalming methods.

[Octavius]

Dunno I-M, embalming wasn�t much of a cure!

AZK, consider the work of Hippocrates, he is generally considered to be the first person who determined that illness had a physical and a rational explanation. He rejected the views of his time that considered illness to be caused by superstitions and by possession of evil spirits and disfavour of the gods, using the methods jno so aptly provides.

http://www.sjsu.edu/depts/Museum/hippoc.html

[Clanad]

Historically, there are a number of reasons civilization and advances flourished in Greece. Firstly, Greece, as we know it today, didn't exist in the heyday of that culture two or three thousand years ago. Having said that, there are some simple to understand (good for me) reasons for the advances seen. One is the old maxim of location, location, location. The early city States or poli were located along trade routes and benefited from interaction with many other peoples. (One of the major city States (Cyrene) that contributed greatly to medical advances was actually in northen Africa). Secondly, bad farming... the soil in the southern Mediteranean is thin and rocky, supporting only a few people per hectare. Hence, the Greeks, early on, turned to the sea and became excellent sailors, at least in the Mediteranean basin. (By the way, the rocky, mountainous region also made it difficult for others to invade or attack the city states). Thirdly, their wide travels exposed them to the Phoenicians from whom they derived an alphabet and written language. The language development is one of the major keys... it became the lingua franca of the entire civilized world. All of these attributes, in my opinion, contributed to the advances demonstrated by history and archaeology.
It really wasn't an internally developed superiority but an inate ability to take advantage of the cultures with which they came into contact and incorporate them within their own... my opinions only...

Contd.

[Clanad]

Contd

Finally, after viewing jno's link, I think I disagree with his conclusion that the Greeks didn't blame everything onto the gods... the Greeks had a god for everything, hundreds, if not thousands of them. Additionally, the Oracle at Delphi was the center of massive worship for the goddess Athena and later Apollo. A pilgramage to the Oracle was a way of life for all Greeks and most leaders consulted the Oracle of Delphi before any major move, so great was the influence...

[Ice-Maiden]

Very interesting - but no Octavius, I never said that embalming WAS a cure. I was referring to the Egyptian understanding of medicine, use of poisons - embalming methods. Went off at a tangent slightly, but just to illustrate that it's not been only the Greeks who were so advanced.

[jno]

think 'cured' as in 'ham', Octavius

[jno]

just in response to Clanad... the Greeks had lots of gods, ranging from nationwide thunderers to local deities in groves in forests. I have no doubt the brainboxes of Athens co-existed with superstitious peasants. But there were, it seems, people who think (as they do now) that the gods could be given a helping hand when it came to treating illness. I have no idea how religious these early medical observers and philosophers were, but their readiness to do something about health, rather than just saying it was in the lap of the gods, appears to have made their medical advances possible.

[dundurn]

Worth remembering that the two daughters of Aesculepius (god of medicine) were Hygeia and Panacea. The first was seen as promoting health and the other was seen as curing illness. This was a concept that later civilisations (including our own) were quick to forget (or slow to remember). Advances in public health, drainage, sanitation, clean running water and aseptic and atiseptic procedures within the medical profession itself contributed greatly in the fight against disease long before antibiotics came along.