2700BCE-999CE

 

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.)

 

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.

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.

 

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.

 

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

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.)

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).

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.)

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.

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.

“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.)

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.

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.)

 

Jewish women doctors’ openly practice medicine in Egypt and Turkey.

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.

“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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