Greek Medicine And Greek Medicine

The greeks may have laid the basis for a lot of things in the common era, but one thing they did differently was their medicine. They first believed that disease was caused by demons and that Asclepius could cure diseases(quatr). So the doctors thought that they could cure patients through sacrifice and prayer(quatr). They would model the diseased body parts so they could be offered to Asclepius. However, by the 5th century B.C.E. doctors started trying a more material approach, they started using medicine. Greek medicine is based on Medicatrix Naturae which means that mother was a healing goddess and all cures to disease could be found in nature. When the greeks took this material approach, they started with herbs that could cure anything from a knee pain to a fever. Then came Hippocrates, known a the father of medicine, he is called this because of his Hippocratic approach. After his time, Greek medicine wasn’t as pure as it use to be. It started to become toxic and dangerous. The Greeks have used herbs from the beginning to cure the simplest things. Ever since the beginning of humanity, we have been using medicine to cure diseases.
The first place we looked to for medicine was nature. The first written evidence of herbal medicine is a Sumerian clay slab dating back 5000 years. During the greek time, Homer referenced 63 different species of herbs from Minoan, Mycenaean, Egyptian, and Assyrian doctors in his epics. Some of these herbs we in turn named after characters from these epics. Elecampane is named after Elena and is used to help all chronic disease of the lungs(http://www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/e/elecam07.html). Some plants from the genus artemisia are also named after the greek word artemis meaning “healthy”. Several well known Greeks have also mentioned herbal medicine. The Greek historian Herodotus referenced the castor oil plant, the musician Orpheus mentioned fragrant hellebore, and lastly, the mathematician Pythagoras referenced the sea onion, mustard, and cabbage. Herbs were well known and useful in Greece, but greeks started to list away from herbs. This was because of Hippocrates. Hippocrates is considered the father of medicine, he absolutely revolutionized the field. Around this time, doctors found a more logical approach. The main collections of these writings were by Hippocrates. This logical system began with the idea that doctors should be careful not to harm patients. Hippocrates sensibly recommended starting treatment with a good diet and exercise because it wouldn’t harm the patient in any way. If that didn’t help the patient, they would then use medicine. They would only use surgery as a last resort. Hippocrates also wrote about the idea of humors. Greek doctors believed that the body was made out of 4 substances: blood, black bile, yellow bile, and phlegm. If you were healthy that would mean your humors were balanced. If you were looked pale that would mean you didn’t have enough blood. If you didn’t have enough blood then people would eat liver because they thought liver had a lot of blood. The reason this worked is because people who looked pale most likely had an iron deficiency and liver contains a lot of iron. Doctors also thought that living in different climate could increase and decrease your humor. This idea might have been wrong, but the idea that people can understand and treat disease with careful observation is true. It seems as if Hippocrates deserved the title of father of medicine. The Greeks started to lose their traditional approach to medicine.
Instead of the Greeks preferring to build a natural resistance to disease, they went to more powerful medicine. They basically did what we are doing now, looking for more potent medicine, like opiates and herbs like Henbane and Belladonna. This led to the use of harsh inorganic medicine, mineral drugs, and toxic mercury preparations like calomel. Something the Greeks also used, was status enhancing drugs, or steroids. These would be used in the Olympics, but aren’t as bad as today. Some would eat animal testicles. Some would gorge themselves on meat for days to perform better. If these 2 things didn’t work people would drink wine potions, go to herbal medicine, use hallucinogens and eat animal hearts. All in all, the Greeks did do some pretty nasty
stuff.
The greeks had some very important medical advancements, but also some that are frowned on today. They might have revealed hundreds of herbs to us, but they also created several highly dangerous drugs. Our world might have been a different place, for the better or worse, without the Greeks.