Page 60 - South Mississippi Living - June, 2023

HISTORY OF HEALTH
story by Victoria Snyder
Medical advancements are made each day. Robotic surgery
is commonplace. There’s no question that doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals should wash or disinfect their hands often.
But it wasn’t always that way. Advancements have been made by leaps and bounds in even the last ten, fifteen, twenty years. But what about hundreds of years? Or thousands? What were medical practices like in the ancient world? And how many have stayed with us?
In ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt, it was believed that the gods, goddesses, and other deities played a role in if someone was ill and if they got better. If one had sinned or offended the gods in some way, disease or infection was thought to be a way for that person to learn a lesson. Because of this, certain healers would recite prayers, chants, and various other incantations and have “magical” objects when treating a patient.
However, these ancient doctors did have their specialties – much like our doctors of today! Not all of them were divine healers who practiced magic; some were more like the doctors and scientists we’d think of today, who used empirical methods. Both of these ancient societies had dentists, and there’s evidence of them having made prosthetic limbs.
Ancient Mesopotamian doctors used herbs to soothe pain and made antiseptics with things like alcohol and honey. Ancient Egyptians used a concoction with willow bark, now known as “nature’s aspirin,” as a pain reliever, and used pomegranate to treat parasitic worms. There’s also evidence that these Egyptian doctors put moldy bread on wounds, suggesting that they
discovered penicillin without knowing exactly what it was. The Gods also played a large role in ancient Greek medicine,
as did the four humors. It was thought that if the four humors (phlegm, yellow bile, black bile, and blood) were imbalanced, one would become ill, so restoring their balance was vital. Hippocrates, known as the father of modern medicine, believed in Humorism, but did not believe that disease was sent by the gods. The Hippocratic Oath, or updated versions of it, are still used today. Greek doctors also recognized the importance of
a patient’s clinical history. They also had tools such as forceps, scalpels, and syringes, and closed wounds using stitches.
In ancient Rome, the cleanliness of one’s person was paramount. They created their famous aqueducts to bring fresh water to the people, and built sewage systems to attempt to clean the streets and keep waste away from clean water. The Romans also loved to use everyday goods to help people feel better, like using cabbage to help digestion. They even made “pills” with local and exotic ingredients. For example, they used saffron, pepper, cinnamon, and other ingredients to make a pill to help with coughing.
As you can see, “ancient” and “modern” ways of medicine aren’t always so different. Many of the ingredients used back then are still used as “natural” treatments to illness. We still
use scalpels and have prosthetics – we’re just more advanced now! We become more advanced each day – in 10 years, what’s considered cutting edge today could be considered obsolete. While discovering new ways of doing things is important, sometimes our past can teach us more than we realize.
60 | June 2023
www.smliving.net | SOUTH MISSISSIPPI Living