Editing History of medicine (section)

==== 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.
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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>