Moses Maimonides—physician and philosopher
Photo by David Baron. CC BY-SA 2.0 The great Hebrew scholar and physician Moses Maimonides was born in Cordoba, Spain, ca.1135. Pupil of the famous Ibn Rushd (Averroes), he became like his teacher a polymath, writing about ethics, metaphysics, religious law, and even astronomy. Much of his medical knowledge was acquired in Fez, Morocco, where […]
Where philosophy and medicine overlap
Mariami Shanshashvili Tbilisi, Georgia Achilles bandaging Patroclus’s wounded arm. Ink drawing after an Attic cup by the potter Sosias, c.500 B.C. Achilles bandaging Patroclus’s wounded arm. Ink drawing after an Attic cup by the potter Sosias, c. 500 B.C. Credit: Wellcome Collection. CC BY In Plato’s Charmides there is a remark by Socrates that is neither […]
Medicine in the afterlife – The Egyptian Book of the Dead
Maureen Hirthler Bradenton, Florida, United States “And therefore shall I neither be borne away, nor carried by force to the East to take part in the festivals of the fiends; nor shall there be given unto me cruel gashes with knives, nor shall I be shut in on every side, nor gored by the […]
Lessons learned from the Greeks: The physician-patient relationship in Hippocratic Gynecology
Jenna Nickas New Brunswick, NJ, USA Sanctuary of Asclepius, Epidaurus, Greece. June 8, 2013 (photo taken by Jenna, on her 21st birthday) The medical treatment of women in Classical Greece was a topic not overlooked by the Hippocratic tradition. Much of the Corpus addresses the health of women, especially Epidemics and Diseases of Women. […]
Medicine in Greek mythology
JMS Pearce Hull, England, UK Fig. 1 Caduceus and Asclepian single serpent Some of the earliest ideas about health and disease lie in Greek mythology. The Greeks of prehistory told, retold, and often remoulded their tales of immortal gods and goddesses that were imaginative, symbolic creations. Stories of the gods probably started with Minoan and […]
Byzantine physicians
Greek physicians dominated medicine for almost two thousand years, beginning with the school of Hippocrates, of Herophilus and Erasistratus in Alexandria, and continuing after the Roman conquest. Celsus and Galen were in Rome; Dioscorides was in the Roman army during the reign of the Emperor Nero. Aretaeus of Cappadocia practiced sometime during the second century. […]
From the goddess of healing to hair of the dog: the role of canines in health myth and fact
Mariel Tishma Chicago, Illinois, USA “A sculpture of Gula, Sumerian deity of healing, with a dog at her side.” Credit: Wellcome Collection. CC BY The landscape of Mesopotamia was riddled with challenges, but for every problem that arose there was a deity to petition. Of these perhaps the most well-known was Inanna or Ishtar, who influenced […]
Islamic medicine
During the expansion of the Empire of Islam and its ensuing Golden Age, physicians from Spain to Samarkand advanced the medical sciences by reviving existing Greek medicine and adding their own innovations.1 There were many prominent physicians, dating back to the days of the Prophet himself. Often associated with hospitals or schools of pharmacy, some […]
Aristotle and the four humors
Aristotle is one of the greatest philosophers of all time. He has influenced human thought for almost 2500 years and many of his works are as relevant today as they were in the days of ancient Greece. Students of his philosophical works are likely to be familiar with his Nicomachean Ethics, Politics, Rhetoric, and Poetics, […]
Aretaeus of Cappadocia, second only to Hippocrates
Aretaeus was born in Cappadocia during the Roman hegemony over Greek Asia Minor. Few details are known about his life, but it is believed he studied in Alexandria and practiced medicine in Rome around the second century AD. After his death he was forgotten until rediscovered during the Renaissance, when a Latin translation of his […]