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2700 BCE – 999 CE

Ancient Roots:
Healing and Medicine from Temples to Physicians

27th Century BCE

 


Imhotep (Greek: Imuthes, Ἰμούθης) fl. 27th c. BCE (2655-2600 BCE). Physician-priest, architect, engineer, court counselor of Khem (ancient Egypt). Taught that disease happens as a natural effect of living out of alignment with Ma’at (Natural Law and Justice), not as a punishment from the Neteru (deities).
Imhotep was the first historic human (in the ancient Mediterranean) to be deified as a god of medicine, a physician deity, as the adopted son of deities Sekhmet and Ptah. His name means “he who comes in peace” and early Christians would call him the “Prince of Peace”. Numerous temples of prayer, healing, and intervention throughout the Mediterranean were dedicated to him over many centuries. Considered by many as the originator of the mystery cult(s) that became the Asklepian lineage. “Your grandfather, O Asclepius, was the founder of medicine…. through his divine spirit he still furnishes the sick with every kind of aid which previously he used through the art of medicine.” (Asclepius 377, Translation by Clement Salaman.)
In 1892, Sir William Osler described Imhotep as “the first figure of a physician to stand out clearly from the mists of antiquity.” (Osler, W. (1921). The Evolution of Modern Medicine: A Series of Lectures Delivered at Yale University on the Silliman Foundation in April 1913. New Haven, CN: Yale University Press, p. 10.)
“The evidence afforded by Egyptian and Greek texts support the view that Imhotep’s reputation was very respected in early times… His prestige increased with the lapse of centuries and his temples in Greek times were the centers of medical teachings.” (Encyclopedia Britannica)

Some scholars propose HesiRe as the earliest known physician in the West.

The Khemite (Egyptian) root system of Western medicine emphasized observation of patterns of nature and relationship with land, particularly the Nile River and agriculture, and shaped a view of the human body and its functions within the natural and cosmic scheme. This produced a system that emphasized living in alignment with local ecology and seasonal rhythms, habits of hygiene, and proactive prevention of disease.

3000 BCE – 525 BCE
 
 
 
Temple of Sais. Khemite/African medical school widely esteemed had many female attendees and participants, both as students and as faculty members, focusing mainly on women’s health and medicine, in particular, the famed female physician and teacher Peseshet (2500 BCE).
3000 BCE – 100 CE
 
 
 
Ancient Egypt (Khem): Temple Medicine and Physicians. Treatment featured large pharmacopeia, extensive anatomical knowledge, hands-on therapies and ritual. Three types of practitioners can be identified, which often overlap, especially swnw and wab. • Physician (swnw, pl. swnww), in the lineage of the god Tahuti, with an emphasis on scholarship, “[Thoth/Tahuti]… imparts useful knowledge to the learned and to the swnw his followers, in order to free those whom his god wishes him to keep alive,” (Ebers).
• Magician-physician (wab), a priest of the goddess Sekhmet, with emphasis on the somatic for information and hands for treatment, as well as formulations, taught that each disease contains its cure, “It is the intervention of the priest of goddess Sekhmet in a medical capacity that makes it possible to consider him as a physician.” (Halioua, and Ziskind. Medicine in the Days of the Pharaohs.).
• Magician-priest (kherep) of the goddess Serqet (Serqet-hatyt), with two forms: primary, kherep Serqet and, secondary, sa Serqet, who specialized in demons, insect, reptile, snake and other bites using magickal techniques, including exorcism.
 
Key preserved texts:
• ca. 1825 BCE (12th Dynasty) – The Kahun Gynecological Papyrus
• ca. 1600 BCE (18th Dynasty) – Hearst Papyrus
• ca. 1551 BCE (Early New Kingdom) – The Ebers Papyrus 
           View original: [https://papyrusebers.de/en/]
           The Papyrus Ebers, Translated from the German Version By Cyril P. Bryan (1930) PDF: [https://web.archive.org/web/20130921055114/http://oilib.uchicago.edu/books/bryan_the_papyrus_ebers_1930.pdf]
• ca. 1500 BCE (16th–17th Dynasties of the Second Intermediate Period) – The Edwin Smith Papyrus  
          PDF: [https://isac.uchicago.edu/sites/default/files/uploads/shared/docs/oip3.pdf]
• ca. 1325 BCE (19th Dynasty) – The London Medical Papyrus (New Kingdom)
• ca. 1300 BCE (19th Dynasty) – The Brugsch Papyrus (aka The Berlin Papyrus)

25th Century BCE

2500 BCE 
 
 

Merit-Ptah (“Beloved of Ptah”). Chief court physician during the Second Dynasty of ancient Egypt; first woman known by name in the history of the field of medicine; possibly the first named woman in Western science. 

 

Peseshet. Woman physician during the 4th dynasty in Egypt; trained as a midwife and later given the title, “Lady Overseer of the Female Physicians.” Associated with the widely respected medical school at the temple of Neith in Sais.

1900-1600 BCE

 


Ashurbanipal’s library at Nineveh contains copies of Akkadian clay tablets on medicine.

18th Century BCE

1755-1750 BCE

 


Code of Hammurabi sets out fees for surgeons and punishments for malpractice; written in the Old Babylonian dialect of Akkadian, purportedly by Hammurabi, sixth king of the First Dynasty of Babylon.

12th Century BCE
1150-1145 BCE

 


Correlations between ascending constellations (by the hour) and parts of the human body recorded on papyrus scrolls, discovered by French scholar Jean-Francois Champollion, in the tomb of Ramses V. These papyri could be a predecessor of the later Greek tradition of melothesia, and/or, a link to an earlier Mesopotamian origin for this associative model remain unconfirmed. (Hill, Judith. (2010). Timeline of Astrological Medicine

9th Century BCE

 


Hesiod reports an ontological conception of disease via the Pandora myth. Disease has a “life” of its own but is of divine origin. (Loudon, Irvine (2001). Western Medicine: An Illustrated History.)
8th Century BCE
Agniveśa compiles Agnivesha Samhitā, encyclopedic medical compendium, based on teachings of Atreya, and key source for later Charaka Samhita, core text of Ayurveda.
700 BCE – 300 CE
 
 
 
Ancient Greece (Ελλάδα): Temple Medicine and Physicians. Primary medical and health-related temples include those of Asklēpiós (Ἀσκληπιός; Latin: Aesculapius), his wife Epione (Ἠπιόνη), and his children, the Asklepiadae, Hygeia (Ὑγιεία), Iasō (Ἰασώ), Aceso (Ἀκεσώ), Aglaea (Ἀγλαΐα), Panakeia (Πανάκεια), and Telesphoros (Τελεσφόρος), as well as Apollōn (Ἀπόλλων) and Chiron (Χείρων). This Asklepian temple lineage was a continuation of an earlier medical mystery school lineage traceable to Imhotep.
The main Asklepian sanctuary at Epidaurus (Επίδαυρος) emphasized offerings, self-reflection, natural settings and dream therapy (“incubation”).
Two roles in systems of institutionalized care were: priest (Greek hierós, ἱερός), derived from ἱερὸς [sacred, holy], and physician (Greek, iatrós, ιατρός; genitive ῑ̓ᾱτροῦ).
The English word “therapy” derives from θεραπεύω (therapeúō, “I wait on, attend, serve, cure”).
7th Century BCE
620 BCE
 
 
 
Thales of Miletus (d. 546 BCE). (Greek: Θαλῆς). Philosopher; founder, Milesian School of Natural Philosophy. In the movement away from temple medicine, sought patterns in nature to explain the way phenomena worked through natural principles, observation, hypotheses, and theories.
6th Century BCE
570 BCE
 
 
 
Pythagoras the Samian (d. 490 BCE). (Greek: Πυθαγόρας ὁ Σάμιος, romanized: Pythagóras ho Sámios, or simply Πυθαγόρας). Major figure in both scientific and mystery traditions; teachings influenced the basis of later Greek philosophy and medicine, including humoral theory and healing effects of music. Taught the transmigration of souls and practiced a vegetarian diet.
550 BCE – 486 BCE
 
 
 
King Darius I of the Persian Achaemenid dynasty (550-486 BCE) decreed that the Egyptians reestablish medical teaching at the temple of temple of Neith in Sais, thus creating what some consider the first medical school of classical antiquity in Egypt (and the Mediterranean). Darius also established the first teaching hospital in the Persian Empire at the Academy of Gondishapur (Persian: فرهنگستان گندی‌شاپور‎, Farhangestân-e Gondišâpur), a center of medical and scientific research, and predecessor of the modern hospital system.
510 BCE
 
 
 
Alcmaeon of Croton (d. 430 BCE). (Greek: Ἀλκμαίων ὁ Κροτωνιάτης). Practices anatomic dissections, distinguished veins from the arteries and in investigating the brain and optic nerves and the brain, posited the brain as seat of the senses and intelligence.
500 BCE
 
 
 
The Sushruta Samhita (सुश्रुतसंहिता, IAST: Suśrutasaṃhitā, literally “Suśruta’s Compendium”) is published, one of the three works that constitute the Brhat Tray, serving as the foundation for Ayurvedic medicine in South Asia.
5th Century BCE
 
 
 
Herodicus (Greek: Ἡρóδιĸος). Greek physician, native of Selymbria. Pioneered therapeutic exercise, healthy diet, and massage with herbs and oils for treating disease and enhancing health; believed to have been a tutor of Hippocrates.
496 BCE
 
 
 
Sophocles (d. 405 BCE). (Greek: Σοφοκλῆς). “It is not a learned physician who sings incantations over pains which should be cured by cutting.” (Carrick, Paul. Medical Ethics in the Ancient World.)
494-434 BCE
 
 
 
Empedokles (d. 430 BCE). (Greek: Ἐμπεδοκλῆς). Pre-Socratic philosopher and a citizen of Agrigentum, a Greek city in Sicily; best known as articulator of cosmogenic theory of the four Classical elements derived from ancient Mystery School teachings.
470 BCE
 
 
 
Sokrates (d. 399 BCE). (Greek: Σωκρατης). Philosopher; emphasized the unlimited purposefulness of nature. Originator of the dialectical method of critical inquiry (Socratic method), i.e., method of elenchus first described by Plato in the Socratic Dialogues; epistemologically influential in medical philosophy and education.
460 BCE
 
 
 
Hippokrates of Kos (d. 370 BCE). (Greek: Ἱπποκράτης ὁ Κῷος, translit. Hippokrátēs ho Kôios). Greek physician; son of Asklepian priest-physician; studied at Asklepieion of Kos, 5th century BCE. Renowned for respecting nature and self-healing processes within systems, particularly phýsis (Greek: φύσις), including coction (Greek: πέψις, healing response, discharge cycle, factors) and dýnamis iêtrikê (Greek: δύναμις, healing power).
Skilled diagnostician who emphasized prognosis over diagnosis; pivotal in the shift from temple priesthood to the profession of physicians; respected Mysteries, emphasized observation and experimental approach with physician-serving processes of nature systems. ‘Father’ of the profession of Western classical physicians who influenced all schools of medicine through code of ethics and the Hippocratic Collection (Corpus Hippocraticum), mostly through students and other later writers.
 
484 BCE
 
 
 
Herodotus (d. 425 BCE). (Greek: Ἡρόδοτος Hēródotos) describes contemporary doctors of Egypt as organ-based specialists.
450 BCE
 
 
 
The physiologic model and diagnostic methodology of the Four Elements becomes central to the shared framework for Classical physicians.
 
450-350 BCE
 
 
 
The Hippocratic Collection (Latin: Corpus Hippocraticum). A body of evolving and often contradictory medical texts written in Ionic Greek between the 6th-4th c. BCE by the emerging Greek physicians from diverse schools of philosophy and practice, notably those of Kos and Knidos. A fraction of the texts are potentially attributable to Hippocrates as a historic figure.
 
A key principle in Ionic Greek: Νούσων φύσιες ίητροί (nousôn physies iêtroí) – “In disease, the natures are the physicians,” is attributed to Hippocrates; often rendered in Latin as vis medicatrix naturae, a phrase of late Classical or more likely Renaissance origin, following Galen’s humoral model. The underlying shared concept being that a person’s response pattern, i.e., their “natures,” or one’s characteristic self-healing processes, is the primary therapeutic actor. The physician’s intervention secondarily serves that dynamic based on observation and minimal intervention. Importantly, physies is the nominative plural of physis. “It is far more important to know what person the disease has than what disease the person has.”
 
Overall, the Empirical School of Kos emphasized Prognosis: the capacity of the person to recover with the physician serving the natural processes. Whereas the Rationalist School of Knidos emphasized Diagnosis, determining the name of the pathology as the target of the physician’s intervention, as the respective focus of therapeutic intervention by the physician. (Hippocrates’ Epidemics VI 5 (Loeb Classical Library Vol. 447, p. 240; Superscription of Sixth Book of Epidemic Diseases (VI, 5, Littre, V, 314), Hippocratic Corpus, according to Boyd’s translation of Max Neuburger. (1910-1915) Playfair, E., Translate. History of Medicine, vol. 1, 136; Epidemic Diseases (VI, 5, Littre, V, 314) according to FH Garrison. “The Healing Power of Nature”. Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine, 1927 Jul; 3(7), 479-480. Coulter, Harris. The Divided Legacy, vol. 1.)
 
Key concepts central to the Collection include: phýsis / phúsis (Greek, φύσις: origin; “organized life activity” or “nature/characteristic”; originally “coming into being” but came to “personify … as living directing agent”); eîdos (Greek: εἶδο: “type”, the “it” diagnosed); “dýnamis” (Greek: δύναμης) “… not an abstract quality or property but a simple qualitative substance, with its individual ‘power’ for action and manifesting its natural ‘power’ by observable effects.” (De Morbis IV, as quoted by Harold W Miller. “Dynamis and the Seeds.” Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, 1966; 97, 281-290.); coction (Greek: πέψις, Latin: coctio: “mixture, compounding and digestion,” i.e., therapeutic “cooking”); and techné (Greek: τέχνη: “art, craft, skill”). “In addition to the state of general health and various other indications, fever and the nature of the excretions and secretions served as guiding principles in clinical predictions. According to the prevailing humoral doctrine these were looked upon as ‘materies morbi’ expelled from the system, and their varying consistency demonstrated the proportional admixture of the elemental fluids. Upon analogy drawn from daily life and digestive processes, the temperature of excreta of greater or less concentration was taken for the result of a process of coction of the vital juices by the body warmth. Three grades of disease were thus evolved: the stage of raw juice (Greek: ἀπεψία), the stage of coction (Greek: πέψις), and the stage of crisis (expulsion or removal of the materials of disease), as described in Neuburger, M. (1910-1915) Playfair, E., Transl. History of Medicine, vol. 1, 118).
 
The Hippocratic meaning of “nature” being described as “the entire organism” behaving through characteristic patterns as “the embodiment of laws, at another time the core and the substance (of all beings).” In modern systems biology and ecology, Nature, (the Earth as a living organism), is Gaia, from Neuburger, M. (1944). “An Historical Survey of the Concept of Nature from a Medical Viewpoint,” Isis, (35)1:17.
 
428 (or 427) BCE
 
 
 
Plato (d. 347 BCE). (Classical Attic: Πλάτων Plátōn). Prominent Athenian philosopher during Classical period of Ancient Greece, founder of the Academy, often considered first institution of higher learning in the Mediterranean civilization; influenced by Hippocrates, emphasized the unlimited purposefulness of nature.
4th Century BCE
 
 
 
Agnodike (Greek: Ἀγνοδίκη). Popular but controversial Athenian midwife; first woman physician in Greek medicine with focus on women’s medicine. [HK]Experience, Heritage and Knowledge [DP] Philistion of Locri (Greek: Φιλιστίων). Greek physician, medical and dietary author; often attributed authorship of De Salubri Victus Ratione and De Victus Ratione, within the Hippocratic collection; considered by some as one of the founders of the Empiric school. [HK]Experience, Heritage and Knowledge [DP] Praxagoras (Greek: Πραξαγόρας ὁ Κῷος). Develops a humoral theory using 11 humors; advances Aristotle’s anatomy by distinguishing veins and arteries, noting that only arteries pulse; teaches that arteries stemmed from the heart, while veins originated in the liver. Associated with Alexandrian school, teacher of Herophilus.
400 BCE-260 BCE
 
 
 
Huáng Dì Nèijīng (The Yellow Emperor’s Inner Classic; simplified Chinese: 黄帝内经; traditional Chinese: 黃帝內經). Emerges as a heterogenous compilation assembled over 200± years, establishing the foundation for classical Chinese medicine. In two parts, structured as a dialogue between the Emperor Huang Di and his chief physicians, primarily Qíbó (岐伯), but also Shàoyú (少俞), the Suwen (素問), or Basic Questions, presenting cosmology, physiology and medical theory, and the Lingshu (靈樞; Spiritual Pivot), discussing acupuncture, within an eclectic but predominantly Daoist worldview of three-worlds metaphysiology of Jing, Qi and Shen (精氣神) circulating through the elemental system of Wu Xing (Five Phases). Parallel in many ways to the diverse authorship structure and historical role of The Hippocratic Collection of the ancient Greek medical tradition.  https://www.loc.gov/item/2021666312
384 BCE
 
 
 
Aristotle (d. 322 BCE ). (Greek: Ἀριστοτέλης Aristotélēs). Philosopher; student of Plato; subscribed to holos (meaning total or all) summarized in Metaphysics as the idea that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts; introduced philosophical concept of psyché or soul as principle of life: the “force inspiring, organising and energising the body,” responsible for cognition and animating living beings. Held psyché as central to life and all that lived. In De Anima (On the Soul) he referred to ‘anima’ (soul) or ‘vital function’ as the entelechy (or first entelechy) of living organisms. “The totality is not, as it were, a mere heap, but the whole is something besides the parts.” Kornmeier wrote that he “considered the soul to be the vivifying principle or vital energy common to all organised bodies; and the vegetative soul was the part that controlled the functions of nutrition, and so far corresponded to what Hippocrates understood by nature. This was the beginning of a philosophical speculation that was to obscure down to our own day the idea of a simple general principle entertained by Hippocrates,” in The Soul Is An Octopus – Ancient Ideas of Life and The Body; Aristotle, De Anima; Anderson, J.W. (1885), “On The Vis Medicatrix Naturae,” The Glasgow Medical Journal. p. 323; Neuburger, M. (1944). “An Historical Survey of the Concept of Nature from a Medical Viewpoint.” Isis; 35,1:17.)
 
Aristotle “championed empiric investigation of the natural world, and was first to support his biomedical theories with systematized dissection. He conflates four body humors (fluids) with the four elements, by correlating, then assigning a system temperature and moisture attributions (still under debate amongst practitioners).” (Hill, Judith. 2010.)
371-287 BCE
 
 
 
Theophrastus (Greek: Θεόφραστος Theophrastus) (d. 287 BCE). “Aristotle’s illustrious student Theophrastus disputes the accuracy of Aristotle’s assignments of the four humors to specific four elements, (in particular, the air element to the “hot and moist” sanguine humor; as also does philosopher Plotinus (d. 270 BCE). Note: Aristotle himself gives an alternate system of element-humor assignments in his biological works.” (Hill, Judith. 2010.)
341 BCE
 
 
 
Epicurus (d. 270 BCE). (Greek: Ἐπίκουρος). Empiricist and advocate of free will, valued a self-sufficient life that emphasized ethical behavior, peace and freedom from fear (ataraxia) and the absence of pain (aponia), often interpreted as hedonistic; opposed Plato and introduced a materialistic metaphysics in which mechanistic explanation of natural phenomena excluded any teleological viewpoint.
335 BCE
 
 
 
Herophilus (Greek: Ἡρόφιλος) (d. 280 BCE). Working primarily in Alexandria, often with Erasistratus, systematically dissects human cadavers (reportedly, also, human vivisection), as recorded in over nine works, including describing the nervous system, distinguishing between sensory nerves and motor nerves and the brain, and detailing the anatomy of the eye.
304 BCE
 
 
 
Erasistratus (d. 250 BCE±) (Greek: Ἐρασίστρατος). Studies the brain, heart and eyes, distinguishing between the cerebrum and cerebellum, as well as the vascular, nervous, respiratory and reproductive systems, as part of school of anatomy in Alexandria, with Herophilus.

3rd Century BCE

 


Orphic Hymn to Phusis/Phýsis (Greek: Φυσις) recorded in writing from oral tradition of the Mystery tradition. 215 BCE [HK]Experience, Heritage and Knowledge [PM][DP] Huangfu Mi (d. 282) (Chinese: 皇甫謐) compiles the Canon of Acupuncture and Moxibustion (simplified Chinese: 针灸甲乙经; traditional Chinese: 針灸甲乙經; pinyin: Zhēnjiǔ jiǎyǐ jīng), ca. 260 BCE. A systematic compilation of earlier texts on acupuncture and moxibustion that serves as a root reference work influential over millennia.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huangfu_Mi#/media/File:Chinese_woodcut,_Famous_medical_figures;_Huangfu_Mi_Wellcome_L0039322.jpg]

 2nd Century BCE
 
 
 
Charaka Samhitā Agnivesha Samhitā Brhat Trayi
2nd Century BCE – 1st Century BCE
 
 
 
The Stoic philosophers apply the concept of melothesia (Greek: μελοθεσία) or the ‘Zodiac Man’, in which each organ and bodily function is associated with a particular planet or zodiacal sign, as a working hypothesis illustrating the ‘microcosm’ of the human body in relation to the ‘macrocosm’ of the universe. This model, preceded in Babylonian astrology of late 5th century BCE and formulated by Posidonius, Manilius, Ptolemy and others, persisted in official medical education and practice in Europe until at least the 17th century. [https://onlineexhibits.library.yale.edu/s/medicalastrology/page/astrological-anatomy]
124 (or 129) BCE
 
 
 
Asclepiades (Greek: Ἀσκληπιάδης) (d. 40 BCE), a.k.a. Asclepiades of Bithynia. Greek physician, who in contrast to the concept of nature in the Hippocratic writings, based his medical theory on atomism, entirely excluding teleology, declaring: “Nature is nothing more than the body and its movement.” Arguing against the fundamental curative role of nature in the Hippocratic writings, he wrote that “physis labors in vain” and that “Not only is Nature useless: it is sometimes actually harmful”. Significant influence on the Methodist school of Roman medicine.
116-27 BCE
 
 
 
Marcus Terentius Varro proposes prototypal germ theory of disease. (Adler, Robert E. Medical Firsts: From Hippocrates to the Human Genome.)
30-10 BCE
 
 
 
Cuneiform tablet displays a complete table of melothesia (12 zodiacal signs linked to twelve bodily zones). (Wee, John Z. “Discovery of the Zodiac Man in Cuneiform,” Journal of Cuneiform Studies.)
25 BCE
 
 
 
Aulus Cornelius Celsus (ca. 25 BCE-ca. 50 CE). Offers deep insight into the essential Empirical viewpoint in writing: “All that is possible to come to know in the living, the actual treatment exhibits.” In other words, the only meaningful diagnosis is the person’s response to intervention. In De Medicina Libri Octo he writes on the evolution of medicine thus: “In nullo quidem morbo minus fortuna sibi vinicare quam ars potest: ut pote quam repugnante natura nihil medicina proficiat.” “Chance plays an important part in disease, and since the identical substance will in one case heal and in another remain impotent, it may be questioned whether the recovery can be ascribed to the remedy applied, or to the self-help of the body.”
“Some of the Roman authors, especially Pliny and Seneca, made an idol of nature as an almost personally conceived being which acts with wisdom, purposefully.” (Max Neuburger. “An Historical Survey of the Concept of Nature from a Medical Viewpoint,” pp. 17-18.)
1st Century CE
 
 
 
Nanjing or Huangdi Bashiyi Nanjing (Chinese: 黃帝八十一難經; The Huang Emperor’s Canon of Eighty-One Difficult Issues). Foundational text of theory and practice in classical Chinese medicine addressing enigmatic statements from the Huangdi Neijing which directly and through 1000 years of commentary texts shapes Chinese medicine as well as exerting profound influence upon Japanese acupuncture and traditional Japanese medicine.
23 CE
 
 
 
Gaius Plinius Secundus, called Pliny the Elder (d. 79 CE) writes Naturalis Historia (Natural History), which became a model for later encyclopedias.
40 CE
 
 
 
Pedanius Dioscorides (d. ca. 90 CE) (Greek: Πεδάνιος Διοσκουρίδης, Pedianos Dioskorides) Physician and botanist; wrote De Materia Medica (ca. 70 CE), an early important herbal text on systematic clinical application of approximately 600 plant medicines.
 
2nd Century CE
 
 
 
Cleopatra, Egyptian physician during the Ptolemaic Period, writes extensively about medicines, pregnancy, childbirth and women’s health; these writings would be consulted by Galen and other authorities, and studied for over 1,000 years. Note: not the similarly named Queen.
120-175 CE
 
 
 
Vettius Valens (d. 175 CE). 2nd-century Hellenistic astrologer, “assigns the Four Elements to the zodiac signs. (First known explication).” (Hill, Judith. 2010.)
129 CE
 
 
 
Aelius Galenus or Claudius Galenus (d. 199/217; Greek: Κλαύδιος_Γαληνός). Known as Galen of Pergamon; highly influential Roman physician, surgeon, and medical philosopher in subsequent centuries. Experimenter and anatomist; author of 350 works, including 16 on the pulse; Empiricist turned Rationalist. Emphasized clinical results; shifted frame of analysis from whole person to organs; used experience to build systems, especially humoral diagnosis. In the commentaries on Hippocrates Renaissance, translations of the Ionic Greek phrase Νόσων φύσεις ἰητροί (nousôn physies iêtroí) into Latin appear as vis medicatrix naturae, which framed its meaning according to his humoral model: “The constitutions (or temperaments) are the physicians of diseases (or sicknesses).” Notably, medicatrix is an atypical late, post-Classical noun, feminine equivalent of the post-Classical masculine medicator and grammatically conveys feminine, i.e., “woman physician.” Galen regards “nature as the chief factor in the re-establishment of health,” (Heidel) but defines phýsis more narrowly, as power, causal force, particularly in the interaction of the humoral qualities. In Galenic Latin, naturae is genitive plural and refers to the dynamic patterns of interrelationship “of the natures”, i.e., the humors and their qualities. Thus, the word natura/-ae carries the meaning of characteristic as in “in its nature”, rather than Nature as the surrounding ecosystem, consistent with elementally-based humoral physiology. The contemporaneous formulation natura medica is often translated using the future concept of “Nature” might be understood biologically, as referring to nested living systems embedded within the planetary organism Gaia, acting through the organism’s self-organizing processes. Dominant dogma of Western learnèd medicine for more than 1,300 years; often factually inaccurate. (Heidel, William A. (1910) Περὶ Φύσεως. A Study of The Conception of Nature among the pre-Socratics. PAAAS, pp. 4579-133. Heinemann, G. “Peri Phuseôs: Physics, Physicists, and Phusis in Aristotle”. Neuburger, M. “An Historical Survey of the Concept of Nature from a Medical Viewpoint”. Isis 1944; 35,1:17,18.). “In his On Critical Days, Book Three, Galen interprets the Moon’s phase and aspects to various planets at onset of illness, as well as for physician induced purgations.” (Hill, Judith. 2010.) “Galenic Medicine” will be the primary operative model used by physicians practicing in Europe through the end of the 17th century CE.
3rd Century CE
 
 
 
Quintus Gargilius Martialis, Roman writer on horticulture, botany and medicine, authors De Hortis, of which significant portions appear within the body of and as an appendix to the Medicina Plinii (an anonymous 4th century handbook of medical recipes based upon Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historiae, xx-xxxii), discussing the cultivation and medicinal properties of trees and vegetables, often quoting Dioscorides.
220 CE
 
 
 
Zhang Zhongjing (150-219 CE). (Chinese: 張仲景, formal name Zhang Ji (張機). Authors Shānghán Lùn (simplified Chinese: 伤寒论; traditional Chinese: 傷寒論; Discussion of Cold Damage) as a part of Shānghán Zábìng Lùn (simplified Chinese: 伤寒杂病论; traditional Chinese: 傷寒雜病論), Foundational theoretical structure and clinical reference work in Chinese medicine from the late Han dynasty presenting the Six Conformations model of pathophysiology.
4th Century CE
 
 
 
Artemisia, Queen of Caria. Noted botanist, herbalist and physician in southwest modern Turkey; documents medicinal influences of wormwood as a drink, according to Pliny the Elder who named the plant after her. Influenced Strabo and Pliny and other later authors. In Egypt, women exercise authority in medicine and science until the triumph of institutional Christianity, 4th c. CE.
 
 
 
Aspasia (Greek: Ασπασία). Athenian woman physician; wrote text on women’s medicine, including childbirth and women’s surgery. “Her pioneering work and prolific writings influenced all major figures of Byzantine medicine… her admirable knowledge and techniques in the field or the innovative surgical procedures were thoroughly mentioned by Aetius, who considered her as a medical genius and at least equivalent to the best male surgeons of her time.” Became well known through her work as a midwife and gynecologist. (Journal of Universal Surgery, Aug 2016.)
 
 
 
Cleopatra Metrodora (Greek: Μητροδώρα, ca. 200-400 CE). Athenian woman physician, probably of Egyptian origin; wrote On the Diseases and Cures of Women. “Metrodora’s breast and face reconstruction, re-suturing of the vaginal hymen and breast and uterus cancer excisions, present great similarities to modern surgery.” (Journal of Universal Surgery, Aug 2016)
314 CE
 
 
 
 
Synod of Ancyra. The Roman Church condemns any who sought or gave relief from illness by any means but prayer, because disease is viewed as a religious problem, under domain of church authorities, not a medical one.
362 CE
 
 
 
Roman Emperor Julian orders xenones (proto-hospitals) built, imitating Christian charity institutions. (Prioreschi, Plinio. A History of Medicine: Byzantine and Islamic Medicine.) 369 CE [PM]Practice Models and Care Delivery [AI] Basil of Caesarea founds Basilias at Caesarea in Cappadocia as an early hospital, including facilities for patients, nurses and physicians, along with educational institutions. (Durant, Will. The Age of Faith: A History of Medieval Civilization-Christian, Islamic, and Judaic-From Constantine to Dante: A.D. 325-1300.)
375 CE
 
 
 
Ephrem the Syrian opens a hospital at Edessa offering “nosocomia for the sick, brephotrophia for foundlings, orphanotrophia for orphans, ptochia for the poor, xenodochia for poor or infirm pilgrims, and gerontochia for the old”. (Durant, Will. The Age of Faith: A History of Medieval Civilization-Christian, Islamic, and Judaic-From Constantine to Dante: A.D. 325-1300.)
5th Century CE
[
 
 
Synagōgē pasōn lexeōn kata stoicheion (Alphabetical Collection of All Words), Greek lexicon compiled by Hesychius of Alexandria, contains entry for maia, which is “mother” or “grandmother” as a term of respect for one’s grandmother or one’s aging nurse (the servant or slave who breastfed you and cared for you when in infancy) or any female elder, and also tiktousas iatros (“the physician attending women giving birth,” i.e., a midwife).
 
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In Rome Fabiola founds first hospital in Latin Christendom.
 
 
 
The Compleat Bonesetter written by Friar Moulton at the behest of St. Augustine. Revised in 1656 by Robert Turner. 420 CE [PM]Practice Models and Care Delivery
[HK] Caelius Aurelianus, a physician from Sicca Veneria (El-Kef, Tunisia), authors On Acute and Chronic Diseases in Latin. (Nutton, Vivia. Ancient Medicine.)
6th Century CE
 
 
 
Nestorians, under the Sasanians, build xenodocheions (bimārestāns), combining Galenic teaching and lay traditions, later evolving into the complex secular “Islamic hospital”. 529-1500 CE
 
 
 
St. Benedict of Nursia (d. 547). Founds the Monastery of Monte Cassino, initiating the era of Monastic Medicine in Europe that included care of the sick by nuns, monks and priests in infirmaries, abbeys, convents, monasteries and monastic hospitals. During the Middle Ages (5th-15th centuries) this became an “important source for formal medical care and education with monks [and nuns] maintaining hospitals, infirmaries and herb gardens.” This has been described as a major source of “primary care” for lay people, especially rural folk of this era. Services provided included “natural, physical-based medical practices, including hygiene, herbalism, and dietetics; Galen’s bloodletting and other physical treatments” and spiritual intervention. “A unique feature [was] use of natural treatments as a manifestation of spiritual medicine rather than purely natural, knowledge-based medicine.” Abbess Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179) became a respected female exemplar.
 
Monastic medicine was influential in the evolution of nature cure and naturopathy; notably, Prelate Sebastian Kneipp. Monastic hospitals served monks, nuns and the common folk, and supported medical study. A typical campus included a church, pharmacy, library, hydrotherapy, kitchen, medicinal gardens and cemetery. Monks, nuns, and lay people were separated because of “different degree of potential for spiritual healing.” (Prioreschi, Plinio. A History of Medicine: Medieval Medicine; McWilliams, C. Health Sovereignty and the Medicine of Hope: A Historical Account of Christian Nature Cure.)
581 CE 
 
 
 
Sūn Sīmiǎo (traditional Chinese: 孫思邈; simplified Chinese: 孙思邈) (d. 682). Chinese physician, scholar and writer of the Sui and Tang dynasty. Known by the honorific of ‘King of Medicinals’ (藥王; 药王, yao wang) and as a teacher of yangsheng (養生/养生, yang shēng, nurturing life), a health-promoting way of living which include daily living principles and practices including dietary, physical movement exercises and breathwork.
He compiled, edited and authored Bei Ji Qian Jin Yao Fang (備急千金要方, Essential Formulas for Emergencies Worth a Thousand Pieces of Gold), an encyclopedic work on acupuncture, moxibustion, massage, diet, and exercises published in 652 containing 4500 recipes for medicines, with special attention to treatments for women and children). A second classic Qian Jin Yi Fang (千金翼方, Supplement to the Formulas of a Thousand Gold Worth), 30 volumes published posthumously in 682, contains 800 medicinal substances, including new herbs, especially ones from India and other foreign lands, with details about collection and preparation of 200, as well as 2000 more formulas, and discourse on the formulas and treatment strategies of the Shang Han Lun. He also put forth the “Thirteen measures to keep health”, which claimed that actions like touching hair, rolling eyes, walking, and shaking heads improved health. Beiji Qian Jin Yao Fang contains “On the Absolute Sincerity of Great Physicians,” or called “Dayi Heart”, a fundamental guide to the ethics and values of practicing medicine in service.
7th Century CE
620 CE
 
 
 
Aaron of Alexandria wrote the Pandects, 30 books on medicine, including the first known descriptions of smallpox and measles in European antiquity; later translated into Arabic about 683 CE by Māsarjawaih, a Syrian Jew and Physician.
8th Century CE
 
 
 
“Galenic Medicine is introduced to India by Arabs and Persians. Elements of this system have continued through the present time in the Unani Medical system, and in Ayurvedic Medicine. The Jyotish of India developed a powerful technique of gem remedials for anti-doting planetary imbalances in the natal chart, an/or caused by transits to the natal chart. Although this usage is not distinctly medical, the use of specific gems is widely used in this regard.” (Hill, Judith. 2010.)
9th Century CE
801-873 CE
 
 
 
Abu Yūsuf Yaʻqūb ibn ʼIsḥāq aṣ-Ṣabbāḥ al-Kindī (Arabic: أبو يوسف يعقوب بن إسحاق الصبّاح الكندي; Latin: Alkindus; (d. 873 CE). Writes De Gradibus and other important philosophical texts, as key figure in the House of Wisdom (Arabic: بيت الحكمة, romanized: Bayt al-Ḥikmah) in Baghdad, where he was appointed by several Abbasid Caliphs to compile and translate ancient Greek scientific and philosophical writings into the Arabic language; thus making them available to Europeans. In Aqrabadhin (The Medical Formulary), developed a mathematical scale to quantify the strength of medicinal agent and a system to determine in advance the most critical days of a patient’s illness using the phases of the moon, which Plinio Prioreschi, considered the first attempt at serious quantification in medical prescribing. Also, with Al-Khwarizmi, introduces Indian numerals to the Islamic world, and subsequently, to the Christian world, relabeled as Arabic numerals.
820 CE
 
 
 
Benedictine religious family founds hospital in the Italian city of Salerno, around which School of Salerno would form becoming famous by the early 900s as the first European modern medical school; gathering together a library with most important treatises from the past centuries, in alliance with nearby abbey of Montecassino, that would become the most important repository of classical medical knowledge in Europe. The school’s faculty included Trotula de Ruggiero, who wrote extensively on gynecology.
9th Century CE
 
 
 
The use of zero, key to practical mathematics, long in use in India, is adopted in Baghdad. As designed by Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, a Muslim mathematician from Persia, the shape of the numerals refers to their respective angles; thus, 1 has one angle, while 4 has four, 0 has none and so on. al-Khwarizmi’s systematic approach to solving linear and quadratic equations enabled algebra and algorithms.
864 CE
 
 
 
Abū Bakr al-Rāzī (Arabic: أبو بکر محمد بن زکریاء الرازي, Abū Bakr Muḥammad bin Zakariyyāʾ al-Rāzī), known as (al-)Razi or by his Latin name Rhazes, (d. 925 or 935 CE). Persian philosopher, physician and alchemist during the Islamic Golden Age, author of over 200 manuscripts containing his observations and discoveries; in translation, these medical texts and theories permeated medieval European medical practice and education in the Latin West.
During his tenure as chief physician of Baghdad and Ray hospitals renowned for compassionate and dedicated care of his patients. “On Surgery” and “A General Book on Therapy” as well as other treatises from his major work Al-Mansuri became central to the medical curriculum of emerging Western universities. Described as “probably the greatest and most original of all the Muslim physicians, and one of the most prolific as an author”.
Credited as a founder of pediatrics and a pioneer of obstetrics and ophthalmology, he clinically distinguished smallpox and measles, and offered treatment for the former. (Browne, Edward G. (1921). Arabian Medicine, Being the Fitzpatrick Lectures Delivered at the College of Physicians in November 1919 and November 1920. pp. 44-53.)
9th – 14th Century CE
 
 
 
Jewish women doctors’ openly practice medicine in Egypt and Turkey.
 
10th Century CE
980 CE
 
 
 
Ibn Sina (Abū-ʿAlī al-Ḥusayn ibn-ʿAbdallāh Ibn-Sīnā; Persian: ابوعلی سینا‎; Arabic: ابن سینا‎; Latin: Avicenna) (d. 1037 CE). Muslim physician, philosopher, astronomer and writer during the Islamic Golden Age, deeply influenced by Greek Aristotelian philosophy, who is among the most influential philosophers of the pre-modern era. “Medicine is the art of preserving health and eventually curing diseases.”
He is most well known for and exerts major historical influence through The Canon of Medicine (completed 1025; Arabic: القانون في الطب al-Qānūn fī al-Ṭibb; Persian: قانون در طب, Qanun-e dâr Tâb), a medical encyclopedia which became a standard medical text in the curriculum of many medieval universities in Europe and remained in use as late as 1650, and The Book of Healing (published 1027; Arabic: کتاب الشفاء, romanized: Kitāb al-Shifāʾ; Latin: Sufficientia; also known as The Cure or Assepha), a philosophical and scientific encyclopedia. Approximately 240 of his written works have survived, of the 450 works he is credited with having written, including 150 on philosophy and 40 on medicine as well as highly regarded texts on alchemy, Islamic theology, mathematics, physics, logic, psychology, astronomy, geography and geology, and works of poetry.
 
10th – 12th Centuries CE
 
 
 
“First known illustrated depictions of the Zodiacal Man appear in Europe (sources vary on earliest known date and place). These were quite rare, and not widely used. Circulation increased…” over time. (Hill, Judith. 2010.)  
 
 
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