2700BCE-999CE

25th Century BCE

2500 BCE  

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

18th Century BCE

1755-1750 BCE

[D]Definitions, Principles, Theories and Ethics [PM] 

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

[HK]Experience, Heritage and Knowledge [PM] 

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.)

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”).

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.

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

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.

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.

Agnodike (Greek: Ἀγνοδίκη). Popular but controversial Athenian midwife; first woman physician in Greek medicine with focus on women’s medicine.

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.

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.

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