Editing History of medicine (section)

=== Ancient Greek medicine ===
{{Main|Ancient Greek medicine}}

==== Humors ====
The [[theory of humors]] was derived from ancient medical works, dominated Western medicine until the 19th century, and is credited to Greek philosopher and surgeon [[Galen of Pergamon]] (129 – {{circa|216 CE}}).<ref name="Syros_2013">{{Cite journal | vauthors = Syros V |date=2013 |title=Galenic Medicine and Social Stability in Early Modern Florence and the Islamic Empires |journal=Journal of Early Modern History |volume=17 |issue=2 |pages=161–213 |doi=10.1163/15700658-12342361 |via=Academic Search Premier}}</ref> In Greek medicine, there are thought to be four humors, or bodily fluids that are linked to illness: blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile.<ref name="Stelmack_1991">{{Cite journal | vauthors = Stelmack RM, Stalikas A |date=1991 |title=Galen and the Humor Theory of Temperament |journal=University of Ottawa |volume=12 |pages=255–63 |via=Science Direct}}</ref> Early scientists believed that food is digested into blood, muscle, and bones, while the humors that were not blood were then formed by indigestible materials that are left over. An excess or shortage of any one of the four humors is theorized to cause an imbalance that results in sickness; the aforementioned statement was hypothesized by sources before [[Hippocrates]].<ref name="Stelmack_1991" /> Hippocrates ({{circa|400 BCE}}) deduced that the four seasons of the year and four ages of man that affect the body in relation to the humors.<ref name="Syros_2013" /> The four ages of man are childhood, youth, prime age, and old age.<ref name="Stelmack_1991" /> Black bile is associated with autumn, phlegm with winter, blood with spring, and yellow bile with summer.<ref>{{cite book | vauthors = Barber N |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iIHm2TegTwYC&pg=PA13 |title=Medieval Medicine |publisher=Heinemann-Raintree Library |year=2012 |isbn=978-1-4109-4661-4 |page=13}}</ref>

In ''De temperamentis,'' Galen linked what he called temperaments, or personality characteristics, to a person's natural mixture of humors. He also said that the best place to check the balance of temperaments was in the palm of the hand. A person that is considered to be phlegmatic is said to be an introvert, even-tempered, calm, and peaceful.<ref name="Stelmack_1991" /> This person would have an excess of phlegm, which is described as a viscous substance or mucous.<ref name="Pormann_2007">{{Cite book | vauthors = Pormann PE, Savage-Smith E |title=Medieval Islamic Medicine |year=2007 |isbn=978-1-58901-160-1 |pages=41–75|publisher=Georgetown University Press }}</ref> Similarly, a melancholic temperament related to being moody, anxious, depressed, introverted, and pessimistic.<ref name="Stelmack_1991" /> A melancholic temperament is caused by an excess of black bile, which is sedimentary and dark in colour.<ref name="Pormann_2007" /> Being extroverted, talkative, easygoing, carefree, and sociable coincides with a sanguine temperament, which is linked to too much blood.<ref name="Stelmack_1991" /> Finally, a choleric temperament is related to too much yellow bile, which is actually red in colour and has the texture of foam; it is associated with being aggressive, excitable, impulsive, and also extroverted.

There are numerous ways to treat a disproportion of the humors. For example, if someone was suspected to have too much blood, then the physician would perform bloodletting as a treatment. Likewise, if a person believed to have too much phlegm should feel better after expectorating, and someone with too much yellow bile would purge.<ref name="Pormann_2007" /> Another factor to be considered in the balance of humors is the quality of air where one resides, such as the climate and elevation. Also, the standard of food and drink, balance of sleeping and waking, exercise and rest, retention and evacuation are important. Moods such as anger, sadness, joy, and love can affect the balance. During that time, the importance of balance was demonstrated by the fact that women lose blood monthly during menstruation, and have a lesser occurrence of gout, arthritis, and epilepsy than men do.<ref name="Pormann_2007" /> Galen also hypothesized that there are three faculties. The natural faculty affects growth and reproduction and is produced in the liver. Animal or vital faculty controls respiration and emotion, coming from the heart. In the brain, the psychic faculty commands the senses and thoughts.<ref name="Pormann_2007" /> The structure of bodily functions is related to the humors as well. Greek physicians understood that food was cooked in the stomach; this is where the nutrients are extracted. The best, most potent and pure nutrients from food are reserved for blood, which is produced in the liver and carried through veins to organs. Blood enhanced with pneuma, which means wind or breath, is carried by the arteries.<ref name="Stelmack_1991" /> The path that blood take is as follows: venous blood passes through the vena cava and is moved into the right ventricle of the heart; then, the pulmonary artery takes it to the lungs.<ref name="Pormann_2007" /> Later, the pulmonary vein then mixes air from the lungs with blood to form arterial blood, which has different observable characteristics.<ref name="Stelmack_1991" /> After leaving the liver, half of the yellow bile that is produced travels to the blood, while the other half travels to the gallbladder. Similarly, half of the black bile produced gets mixed in with blood, and the other half is used by the spleen.<ref name="Pormann_2007" />

==== People ====
Around 800 BCE [[Homer]] in the ''[[Iliad]]'' gives descriptions of wound treatment by the two sons of [[Asklepios]], the admirable physicians [[Podaleirius]] and [[Machaon (physician)|Machaon]] and one acting doctor, [[Patroclus]]. Because Machaon is wounded and Podaleirius is in combat [[Eurypylus (king of Thessaly)|Eurypylus]] asks Patroclus to "cut out the arrow-head, and wash the dark blood from my thigh with warm water, and sprinkle soothing herbs with power to heal on my wound".<ref>{{cite book | vauthors = Homer |author-link=Homer |title=Iliad |page=Bk XI:804–48 |url=http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Greek/Iliad11.htm#_Toc239245853}}</ref> Asklepios, like [[Imhotep]], came to be associated as a god of healing over time.

[[Image:Kos Asklepeion.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2<!--width for low image-->|View of the ''Askleipion'' of [[Kos]], the best preserved instance of an Asklepieion]]

Temples dedicated to the healer-god [[Asclepius]], known as ''[[Asclepeion|Asclepieia]]'' ({{langx|grc|Ἀσκληπιεῖα}}, sing. {{lang|grc|Ἀσκληπιεῖον}}, ''Asclepieion''), functioned as centers of medical advice, prognosis, and healing.<ref name="books.google.com">{{cite book | vauthors = Risse GB |title=Mending bodies, saving souls: a history of hospitals |publisher= Oxford University Press |year=1990 |page= 56 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=htLTvdz5HDEC&q=History+of+Hospital%2BAsclepieion&pg=PA56|isbn=978-0-19-974869-3 }}</ref> At these shrines, patients would enter a dream-like state of induced sleep known as ''enkoimesis'' ({{lang|grc|ἐγκοίμησις}}) not unlike anesthesia, in which they either received guidance from the deity [[Sleep temple|in a dream]] or were cured by surgery.<ref name="Askitopoulou, H. 2002 p.11-17">{{cite book |vauthors=Askitopoulou H, Konsolaki E, Ramoutsaki I, Anastassaki E |chapter=Surgical cures by sleep induction as the Asclepieion of Epidaurus. |title=The history of anesthesia: proceedings of the Fifth International Symposium |veditors=Carlos Diz J, Franco A, Bacon DR, Julián Alvarez JR |publisher=Elsevier Science B.V. |series=- International Congress Series 1242 |year=2002 |pages=11–17 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TM-8NIDPowoC&q=History+of+Hospital%2BAsclepieion&pg=PA11 |isbn=978-0-444-51293-2 }}{{Dead link|date=July 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> Asclepeia provided carefully controlled spaces conducive to healing and fulfilled several of the requirements of institutions created for healing.<ref name="books.google.com"/> In the Asclepeion of [[Epidaurus]], three large marble boards dated to 350 BCE preserve the names, case histories, complaints, and cures of about 70 patients who came to the temple with a problem and shed it there. Some of the surgical cures listed, such as the opening of an abdominal abscess or the removal of traumatic foreign material, are realistic enough to have taken place, but with the patient in a state of enkoimesis induced with the help of soporific substances such as opium.<ref name="Askitopoulou, H. 2002 p.11-17"/> [[Alcmaeon of Croton]] wrote on medicine between 500 and 450 BCE. He argued that channels linked the sensory organs to the brain, and it is possible that he discovered one type of channel, the optic nerves, by dissection.<ref>{{cite web|title=Alcmaeon|url=http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/alcmaeon/|publisher=Stanford University|access-date=30 December 2015|date=10 June 2013|archive-date=14 May 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080514131420/http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/alcmaeon/|url-status=live}}</ref>

[[Hippocrates]] of [[Kos]] ({{circa|460}}{{snd}}{{circa|370 BCE}}), considered the "father of modern medicine."<ref>{{cite web |title=Hippocrates: The "Greek Miracle" in Medicine |url=http://www.medicinaantiqua.org.uk/sa_hippint.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080215004956/http://www.medicinaantiqua.org.uk/sa_hippint.html |archive-date=2008-02-15 |access-date=2008-03-08 |website=medicinaantiqua.org.uk |publisher=The University of Michigan |location=Ann Arbor |vauthors=Hanson AE}}</ref> The [[Hippocratic Corpus]] is a collection of around seventy early medical works from ancient Greece strongly associated with Hippocrates and his students. Most famously, the Hippocratics invented the [[Hippocratic Oath]] for physicians. Contemporary physicians swear an oath of office which includes aspects found in early editions of the Hippocratic Oath.

[[Hippocrates]] and his followers were first to describe many diseases and medical conditions. Though [[humorism]] (humoralism) as a medical system predates 5th-century Greek medicine, Hippocrates and his students systematized the thinking that illness can be explained by an imbalance of blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/greatestbenefitt00port |title=The greatest benefit to mankind : a medical history of humanity 1946–2002 |vauthors=Porter R |date=1998 |publisher=W.W. Norton |isbn=978-0-393-04634-2 |edition=1st American |location=New York |oclc=38410525 |orig-year=1997}}</ref> Hippocrates is given credit for the first description of [[Nail clubbing|clubbing]] of the fingers, an important diagnostic sign in chronic suppurative lung disease, lung cancer and [[Cyanotic heart defect|cyanotic heart disease]]. For this reason, clubbed fingers are sometimes referred to as "Hippocratic fingers".<ref>{{cite web |title=What is finger clubbing? |url=http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/cancers-in-general/cancer-questions/what-is-finger-clubbing |access-date=30 December 2015 |publisher=Cancer Research UK |archive-date=15 November 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151115212057/http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/cancers-in-general/cancer-questions/what-is-finger-clubbing |url-status=live }}</ref> Hippocrates was also the first physician to describe the [[Hippocratic face]] in ''Prognosis''. [[Shakespeare]] famously alludes to this description when writing of [[Falstaff]]'s death in Act II, Scene iii. of ''[[Henry V (play)|Henry V]]''.<ref>{{cite book |url=http://shakespeare.mit.edu/henryv/henryv.2.3.html |title=Henry V |vauthors=Shakespeare W |page=Act II, Scene 3 |access-date=2015-12-30 |archive-date=2016-03-05 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160305180259/http://shakespeare.mit.edu/henryv/henryv.2.3.html |url-status=live }}</ref> Hippocrates began to categorize illnesses as [[Acute (medical)|acute]], [[Chronic (medicine)|chronic]], [[Endemic (epidemiology)|endemic]] and epidemic, and use terms such as, "exacerbation, [[relapse]], resolution, crisis, [[paroxysm]], peak, and [[convalescence]]."<ref name="Silverberg1967">{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/dawnofmedicine00silv |title=The dawn of medicine |vauthors=Silverberg R |publisher=Putnam |year=1967 |access-date=16 January 2013 |url-access=registration}}</ref><ref name="Loudon2002">{{cite book |title=Western Medicine: An Illustrated History |vauthors=Loudon I |date=2002 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-924813-1 }}{{page needed|date=October 2023}}</ref>
[[File:Seven named physicians and botanists of the Classical world. Wellcome V0006669.jpg|thumb|Seven named physicians and botanists of the Classical world from [[Vienna Dioscurides]]. Clockwise from top center: [[Galen]], [[Dioscorides]], [[Nicander]], [[Rufus of Ephesus]], [[Andreas of Carystus]], [[List of physicians named Apollonius|Apollonius Mus or of Pergamon]], [[Crateuas (physician)|Crateuas]]]]

The Greek [[Galen]] (c. {{CE|129–216|link=y}}) was one of the greatest physicians of the ancient world, as his theories dominated all medical studies for nearly 1500 years.<ref name="Hajar_2012">{{cite journal |vauthors=Hajar R |date=July 2012 |title=The air of history: early medicine to galen (part I) |journal=Heart Views |volume=13 |issue=3 |pages=120–8 |doi=10.4103/1995-705X.102164 |pmc=3503359 |pmid=23181186 |doi-access=free }}</ref> His theories and experimentation laid the foundation for modern medicine surrounding the heart and blood. Galen's influence and innovations in medicine can be attributed to the experiments he conducted, which were unlike any other medical experiments of his time. Galen strongly believed that medical dissection was one of the essential procedures in truly understanding medicine. He began to dissect different animals that were anatomically similar to humans, which allowed him to learn more about the internal organs and extrapolate the surgical studies to the human body.<ref name="Hajar_2012" /> In addition, he performed many audacious operations—including brain and eye surgeries—that were not tried again for almost two millennia. Through the dissections and surgical procedures, Galen concluded that blood is able to circulate throughout the human body, and the heart is most similar to the human soul.<ref name="Hajar_2012" /><ref name="pmid21781247">{{cite journal |vauthors=Aird WC |date=July 2011 |title=Discovery of the cardiovascular system: from Galen to William Harvey |journal=Journal of Thrombosis and Haemostasis |volume=9 |issue=Suppl 1 |pages=118–29 |doi=10.1111/j.1538-7836.2011.04312.x |pmid=21781247 |s2cid=12092592|doi-access=free }}</ref> In ''Ars medica'' ("Arts of Medicine"), he further explains the mental properties in terms of specific mixtures of the bodily organs.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Prince of Medicine: Galen in the Roman Empire |vauthors=Mattern SP |year=2013 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-998615-6 }}{{page needed|date=October 2023}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=Galen's System of Physiology and Medicine: an analysis of his doctrines and observations on bloodflow, respiration, humors and internal diseases |vauthors=Siegel RE |date=1968 |publisher=S. Karger |isbn=978-3-8055-1016-5 |location=Basel}}</ref> While much of his work surrounded the physical anatomy, he also worked heavily in humoral physiology.

Galen's medical work was regarded as authoritative until well into the Middle Ages. He left a physiological model of the human body that became the mainstay of the medieval physician's university anatomy curriculum. Although he attempted to extrapolate the animal dissections towards the model of the human body, some of Galen's theories were incorrect. This caused his model to suffer greatly from stasis and intellectual stagnation.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xqS1wz_0_DUC&pg=PA222 |title=Medieval Medicine: A Reader |vauthors=Wallis F |year=2010 |isbn=978-1-4426-0103-1 |pages=14, 26, 222|publisher=University of Toronto Press }}</ref> Greek and Roman taboos caused dissection of the human body to usually be banned in ancient times, but in the Middle Ages it changed.<ref name="Numbers 2009 45">{{cite book |title=Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths About Science and Religion |vauthors=Numbers R |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=2009 |isbn=978-0-674-03327-6 |page=45}}</ref><ref name="news.harvard.edu">{{cite web |date=7 April 2011 |title=Debunking a myth |url=https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2011/04/debunking-a-myth/ |work=The Harvard Gazette |vauthors=Shwayder M |access-date=4 January 2018 |archive-date=28 July 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190728101124/https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2011/04/debunking-a-myth/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

In 1523 Galen's ''On the Natural Faculties'' was published in London. In the 1530s Belgian anatomist and physician [[Andreas Vesalius]] launched a project to translate many of Galen's Greek texts into Latin. Vesalius's most famous work, ''[[De humani corporis fabrica]]'' was greatly influenced by Galenic writing and form.
<gallery widths="150" heights="190">
File:Hippocrates rubens.jpg|[[Hippocrates]] (<abbr>c.</abbr> 460–370 BCE). Known as the "father of medicine". 
File:Galenus.jpg|[[Galen]] (129–216 CE), known for his wide insights into anatomy 
</gallery>

==== Herophilus and Erasistratus ====
[[File:Heraklas Plinthios Brokhos Jaw Sling.jpg|thumb|The ''plinthios brochos'' as described by Greek physician [[Heraklas]], a sling for binding a [[Bone fracture|fractured]] [[Human mandible|jaw]]. These writings were preserved in one of [[Oribasius]]' collections.<ref name="cldquipu">{{cite book | vauthors = Day CL | title = Quipus and Witches' Knots | url = https://archive.org/details/quipuswitcheskno0000dayc | url-access = registration | publisher = University of Kansas Press | year = 1967 | location = Lawrence, Kansas | pages = [https://archive.org/details/quipuswitcheskno0000dayc/page/86 86]–89, 124–26 }}</ref>]]
Two great [[Alexandria]]ns laid the foundations for the scientific study of anatomy and physiology, [[Herophilus of Chalcedon]] and [[Erasistratus of Ceos]].<ref name="Longrigg1993">{{cite book| vauthors = Longrigg J |title=Greek Rational Medicine: Philosophy and Medicine from Alcmaeon to the Alexandrians |year=1993|publisher=Psychology Press|isbn=978-0-415-02594-2 }}</ref> Other Alexandrian surgeons gave us ligature (hemostasis), [[lithotomy]], [[hernia]] operations, [[ophthalmic surgery]], [[plastic surgery]], methods of reduction of dislocations and fractures, [[tracheotomy]], and [[mandrake]] as an [[anaesthetic]]. Some of what we know of them comes from [[Aulus Cornelius Celsus|Celsus]] and [[Galen]] of Pergamum.<ref name="ReferenceA">{{cite book | vauthors = Galen | title = On the Natural Faculties, Books I, II, and III | publisher = Loeb Classical Library | location = Harvard | date = 2000 }}</ref>

[[Herophilos|Herophilus of Chalcedon]], the renowned Alexandrian physician, was one of the pioneers of human anatomy. Though his knowledge of the anatomical structure of the human body was vast, he specialized in the aspects of neural anatomy.<ref name="Vallance_1993">{{cite journal | vauthors = Vallance JT | title = Herophilus: The Art of Medicine in Early Alexandria. | journal = Ancient Philosophy | date = April 1993 | volume = 13 | issue = 1 | pages = 237–241 | doi = 10.5840/ancientphil199313163 }}</ref> Thus, his experimentation was centered around the anatomical composition of the blood-vascular system and the pulsations that can be analyzed from the system.<ref name="Vallance_1993" /> Furthermore, the surgical experimentation he administered caused him to become very prominent throughout the field of medicine, as he was one of the first physicians to initiate the exploration and dissection of the human body.<ref name="Britannica_Herophilus">{{cite encyclopedia | title = Herophilus (Alexandrian physician) | encyclopedia = Encyclopædia Britannica Online | date = 2020 | publisher = Encyclopædia Britannica Inc | url = https://www.britannica.com/science/anatomy | access-date = 2022-09-20 | archive-date = 2019-04-08 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20190408004804/https://www.britannica.com/science/anatomy | url-status = live }}</ref>

The banned practice of human dissection was lifted during his time within the scholastic community. This brief moment in the history of Greek medicine allowed him to further study the brain, which he believed was the core of the nervous system.<ref name="Britannica_Herophilus" /> He also distinguished between [[vein]]s and [[artery|arteries]], noting that the latter [[pulse]] and the former do not. Thus, while working at the medical school of [[Alexandria]], Herophilus placed intelligence in the brain based on his surgical exploration of the body, and he connected the nervous system to motion and sensation. In addition, he and his contemporary, [[Erasistratus|Erasistratus of Chios]], continued to research the role of veins and [[nerve]]s. After conducting extensive research, the two Alexandrians mapped out the course of the veins and nerves across the human body. Erasistratus connected the increased complexity of the surface of the human brain compared to other animals to its superior [[intelligence]]. He sometimes employed experiments to further his research, at one time repeatedly weighing a caged bird, and noting its weight loss between feeding times.<ref name="Mason_1962" /> In [[Erasistratus]]' physiology, air enters the body, is then drawn by the lungs into the heart, where it is transformed into vital spirit, and is then pumped by the arteries throughout the body. Some of this vital spirit reaches the brain, where it is transformed into animal spirit, which is then distributed by the nerves.<ref name="Mason_1962">{{cite book | vauthors = Mason SF |title=A History of the Sciences. |date=1962 |publisher=Collier Books |location=New York |isbn=978-0-02-093400-4 |edition=New rev. | page = 57 }}</ref>