many senses, these ancient healers functioned as experimen-
tal scientists, observing symptoms, trying herbal treatments,
and assessing what seemed to help.
Th e ancient Europeans also practiced a form of surgery.
Near Munich, Germany, archaeologists discovered the tomb
of a “warrior-surgeon” that contained a number of medical
and surgical implements. Th is tomb dates to about the third
or early second century b.c.e. Among these instruments were
probes, retractors, and a trepanning saw, or a saw used to cut
holes in the skull. Trepanning was a widely used technique
for treating head injuries and psychological disorders, and
healers used both saws and drills to make their holes. A large
number of skulls have been found that have neat holes drilled
or cut into them. While many people died during this type of
surgery, a surprising number did not, for the holes in some
skulls show evidence of healing. Trepanning evolved from
the notion that the health of the body was based on a balance
of substances. Allowing substances that caused ill health to
escape the body could, it was believed, lead to a cure. For the
same reason, blood-letting (opening a vein to let blood fl ow
out) was a common early practice.
GREECE
BY TOM STREISSGUTH
Asclepios reigned in ancient Greece as the god of health and
medicine. According to Greek myth, Asclepios was the son
of Apollo and was taught the arts of healing and surgery by
the centaur Chiron. His daughter Hygieia was the goddess
of cleanliness and good health; his daughter Panaceia was
the goddess of healing. In ancient Greece the asclepeion was
a sanctuary built to honor Asclepios and as a health retreat,
to treat the sick and the injured. Th ere were asclepia in Ath-
ens, Corinth, Trikkala, Pergamon, Kos, and Epidauros in
the Peloponnesus, the traditional center of the cult. Asclepia
were also built in distant Greek colonies and throughout the
Mediterranean region. Patients arrived to receive the god’s
blessing through healing waters and treatment, through of-
ferings at the temple altar, and through the interpretation
of their dreams by the priests of the sanctuary. Th e fame of
the healing god spread to the early republic of Rome, where
sanctuaries were built in imitation of the Greek asclepeion.
On the outbreak of a plague in the early third century b.c.e.,
the Romans appealed directly for his services. Th e Greeks re-
sponded by sending the god in the form of a snake; in many
depictions of the god, a snake adorns the Rod of Asclepius.
Th is symbol of the healing arts survives in medical emblems
to the present day.
Traditional Greek medicine relied on the use of herbs
and other natural remedies and on incantation and prayer to
the gods. Greek medicine began to pass from religious belief
to scientifi c observation at a school of medicine at Cnidus in
the seventh century b.c.e. Historians believe that Egyptian
medicine, which had some supernatural elements and which
prescribed very strict courses of treatment for every occur-
rence of a disease, had an important infl uence on the early
medical practices of the Greeks. (Th e skill of Egyptian heal-
ers and the power of their medicines are mentioned in the
Odyssey of Homer.)
Alcmaeon (fl. sixth century b.c.e.), a member of the
school of Cnidus, was the fi rst Greek to set down in writing
his observations of the human body. His surgical experi-
ments led to the fi rst rational debates over the structure and
functions of the human body. On performing the fi rst eye op-
erations, Alcmaeon theorized that the brain was the seat of
memory, thought, and emotion. Empedocles (fl. fi ft h century
b.c.e.), a philosopher from the island of Sicily, advanced the
notion of the four elements—earth, air, fi re, and water—and
extended this idea to the human body in the four “humors.”
Th e Greeks believed that a combination of four elements, or
humors, made up an essential balance within the human
body. Th e humors originated in the physical location of the
person and the place of his or her birth, with the ideal bal-
ance being found in the civilized people of the Greek world.
Th e humors were blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile.
Th rough their proportions, the humors shaped the human
intellect and personality and also aff ected life’s physical ex-
istence from birth to maturity and on to old age and death.
A balance of the humors was needed to keep the body free of
disease, and achieving or repairing that balance was the task
of a physician. A patient suff ering from disease could be put
right by purging, by bloodletting, or by some other method of
relieving the body of a humor found to be in excess.
Th e theory of the four humors was followed by Hip-
pocrates (460–377 b.c.e.), the most renowned Greek physician.
Hippocrates was a native of the island of Cos who founded
a new school of medical practice, which for a time became
the most important center of healing in the Greek world. Us-
ing case histories, Hippocrates took a scientifi c approach to
disease, discarding religious superstitions and investigating
causes, symptoms, and physis, or the overall state of the body,
including its inner functioning as well as environmental ef-
fects. In dealing with their patients, physicians at Cos carried
out observation, diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment—the
basic elements of clinical medicine that survive to this day.
Th ey discarded the Egyptian notion of strictly prescribed
treatment; all patients were considered individually through
careful observation and treated accordingly.
Medical students at Cos served a paid apprenticeship
of several years, which involved classroom teaching, study
of medical texts, and observation and treatment of patients.
Th e most enduring product of the school was the Corpus Hip-
pocraticum, a collection of essays by several authors that de-
scribed case histories and accounts of treatment. Th is work
included essays on nutrition, surgery, and obstetrics, as well
as the Hippocratic oath, a lengthy instruction on proper care
and treatment of patients that survives as the foundation of
modern medical treatment and ethics.
Aft er the conquest of North Africa by Alexander of
Macedon (r. 356–323 b.c.e.) and the founding of Alexandria552 health and disease: Greece