the western tradition healing beyond ancient greece · · 2015-04-22the western tradition healing...
TRANSCRIPT
The Western Tradition
Healing Beyond Ancient Greece
Alastair Gray
In This Session…
• Discuss the evolving role of medical practice throughout history
and compare with the emerging paradigms of health within the
21st century.
• Identify the significance and current role of Traditional Medicine
(TM) practices in a worldwide context.
• Recognise and identify traditional evidence, modern perspectives
of the evidence hierarchy, the three prongs of evidence- based
medicine (EBM) and evidence-informed practice (EIP).
• Understand traditional and complementary medicines (TCAM) as
they currently fit into the health care landscape in Australia.
• Develop an awareness of the interrelationships among separate
healing paradigms and their common ground.
• Explain the history and understandings of health and disease
according to different cultural and historical frameworks.
• Understand the development of the scientific method and its
increasing importance in Western medicine as well as its influence
on other medical system paradigms.
• Identify how the changing ideas and perspectives about health
over time relate to the present landscape of natural medicine in
Australia and around the world.
Three points to consider for assessment
• What was the cause of disease?
• What traditions of ancient medicine have survived today?
• What specific herbs and medications were used?
Prehistory vs History
• Prehistory: The period
of time before written
records.
• History: The study of
the human past
through written
records.
Stretching the definition of Europe …
The First Cities
o The first cities developed in the “fertile crescent”:
o Jericho, Israel: ≈ 9000 BC
o Çatalhöyük Turkey: ≈7500 BC
o Ur, Iraq: ≈5,000 BC
o Tell Hamoukar, Iraq: ≈4,000 BC
o Uruk, Iraq: ≈3,500 BC
o Nekhen, Egypt: ≈3,500 BC
o Memphis, Egypt: ≈3,100 BC
The First Cities
o A city is a centre of population, commerce, and culture; a settlement of
significant size and importance. Usually associated with good water
supply and access to wide outlying area, with sea, river and/or road
access.
Ur of Sumeria (now Iraq)
Development of Writing
o Writing developed as a result of political expansion in ancient cultures, which needed reliable means for transmitting information, maintaining financial accounts, keeping historical records, etc.
o Around 4,000 BC, complexity of trade and administration outgrew the power of memory, and writing became a more dependable method of recording and presenting transactions in a permanent form.
o China: ≈6,000 BC
o Mesopotamia: ≈4,000 BC
o Egypt: ≈3,500 BC
o Indus Valley: ≈3,000 BC
o Mesoamerica: ≈2,500 BC
o Greece: ≈1,800 BC (Linear A)
o Greece: ≈1,500 BC (Linear B)
o Phoenicia: ≈1,050 BC
Writing systems
Paleolithic
Mesolithic
Pictographic Ideographic Phonetic - syllabic
Phonetic – alphabetic
Mesopotamia
Babylon largest city in the world from ≈1770-1670 BC
Mesopotamia
Babylon – Population ≈ 200,000
Mesopotamia
An Assyrian clay tablet with cuneiform
Mesopotamia
Goddess of healing Gula and a Scorpion Man
Mesopotamia
Hammurabi: A medicolegal case tried
Mesopotamia
Temple at Luxor
Egypt
o Egyptian medical history and healing history is especially rich and the roots of what we see today are clearly identified here
o “The gift of the Nile” –Isolated by seas, desert and mountains, the culture developed along fertile strips along the Nile and on the delta.
Temple at Luxor
Egypt
o Egyptian society was very stable for tens of centuries, and depended on rigid social hierarchies and belief that the royal family were gods.
o A class of nobles, priests and administrators separated the royal family from the populace, which was largely involved with agriculture and crafts.
Social hierarchy
Egypt
Egypt
o Religious and magical beliefs were part of everyday life in Egypt. Most disease were thought to be due to angered gods and evil demons. Most treatments began with a prayer or incantation to a god.
Edwin-Smith Surgical Papyrus (17th Cent BC)
Egypt
o Egyptian word for doctor is ‘sewanawe’ with the first doctor’s name recorded in history being Hesy-Ra, the ‘Chief of Dentists and Doctors’ to Pharaoh Djoser (27th century BC).
o Lady Peseshet is the first recorded female doctor (2,400 BC) who is referred to as ‘imy-ar-sewanawet’ (‘lady overseer of female doctors’).
o Many specialists were known, including dentists, ophthalmologists, gastroenterologists, proctologists (= ‘neruphuyt’ – shepherd of the anus).
o The pharaohs had their own groups of doctors and specialists, as well as priest-doctors.
Egyptian Healers
o spiritual healing
o herbal medicine
o massage
o manipulation
o therapeutic herbs and foods
o surgery
Medical Knowledge
o Edwin Smith Papyrus describing surgical diagnosis and treatments,
o Ebers Papyrus on ophthalmology, diseases of the digestive system, the head, the skin
o Kahun Gynaecological Papyrus,
o Berlin Medical Papyrus,
o London Medical Papyrus.
o Hearst medical papyrus repeats many of the recipes found in the Ebers papyrus.
o Demotic Magical Papyrus of London and Leiden contains a number of spells for treating physical ailments.
Medical Papyri
o The Edwin Smith
Papyrus
Diseases
o For the evacuation of the belly:
o Cow's milk, 1; .grains, 1; honey 1; mash, sift, cook; take in four portions.
Diet
o There were times when malnutritionwas widespread. Prehistoric dental records suggest that health was poor during much of that period, and improved with the increasing adoption of agriculture; but even in historic times when the supply of food was generally assured, the growth of the population was often stunted. Grown males reached a height of about 1.60 m and females 10 cm less during the early Middle Kingdom
Herbal Medicine
o Garlic and onions
o Coriander
o Cumin
o Acacia seeds
o Pomegranate
o Mandrake
o Cedar
o Hashish
Surgery and Dentistry
o Amputation
o Prostheses
o Circumcision
o Teeth
extraction
o Swollen gums
The place of Egyptian medicine
in historyo Treatment was conservative: if
no remedy was known then only such steps were to be taken which would not endanger the patient.
o Egyptian theories and practices influenced the Greeks, who furnished many of the physicians in the Roman Empire, and through them Arab and European medical thinking for centuries to come
Factoids
o Parasitic Diseases
o Bacterial and Viral
Infections
o Poliomyelitis
o Dwarfism
For Further Investigation
o Mesopotamia:
o 1916 film: “Intolerance” – Silent classic: Babylon section of film focusses on Belshazzar
o 1962 film: “War Gods of Babylon” – Italian epic film loosely based on Sardanapalus
o 1963 film: “I am Semiramis” – Story of Queen Semiramis (≈800 BC)
o 2001 documentary: “Secrets of Ancient Empires: The First Civilizations”
o Egypt:
o 1954 film: “The Egyptian” – Story of Sinuhe the physician in the 18th Dynasty
o 1955 film: “Land of the Pharaohs” – Romanticised film about ancient Egypt
o 1961 film: “Nefertiti, Queen of the Nile” – Life of Nefertiti, famous queen
o 1963 film: “Cleopatra” – Notoriously expensive film flop about Cleopatra
o 2003 documentary: “Egypt: Land of Mummies” – Excellent!
o Aegean Civilisation:
o 1960 film: “Minotaur the Wild Beast of Crete” – Italian epic film loosely based on Theseus
o 1961 film: “Atlantis, the Lost Continent” – Fanciful interpretation of the Atlantis legend
o 2000 documentary: “Empires - The Greeks Crucible of Civilization” – very good
For Further Investigation
o Mesopotamia:
o http://www.indiana.edu/~ancmed/meso.HTM - Mesopotamian medicine
o http://ancienthistory.about.com/cs/nemythology/a/mesopotamiarel.htm - Mesopotamian religion
o http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?historyid=aa53 - Mesopotamian history
o http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/11000 - eText of the “Epic of Gilgamesh”o Egypt:
o http://www.touregypt.net/ehistory.htm - Egyptian history
o http://historylink101.net/egypt_1/religion.htm - Egyptian religion
o http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/ancient_egyptian_medicine.htm - Egyptian medicine
o http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/prehistory/egypt/ - Egyptian culture
o http://www.egyptianmyths.net/ - Egyptian mythology
o http://www.touregypt.net/edwinsmithsurgical.htm - Edwin-Smith Papyrus
o Aegean Civilisation:
o http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/episodes/sinking-atlantis/90/ - Full Minoans documentary online
o http://heritage-key.com/world/palace-knossos-discovery-and-renovation - Knossos palace
o http://heritage-key.com/world/legend-atlantis - Atlantis legend
References
o Roger S. Bagnall, et al. The Demography of Roman Egypt
o Kathryn A. Bard, Steven Blake Shubert, Encyclopedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt, Routledge, 1999
o J. H. Breasted, Ancient Records of Egypt, 1906
o J. H. Breasted, The Edwin Smith Papyrus
o Rosalie David, Patricia Lambert-Zazulak, Egyptian Mummies and Modern Science, Cambridge University Press, 2008
o Rosalie David, Amie Kershaw, Anthony Heagerty, "Atherosclerosis and diet in ancient Egypt" in: The Lancet, Volume 375, Issue 9716, Pages 718 - 719, 27 February 2010
o Erika Feucht, "Pharaonic Circumcision" in : Sibylle Meyer (ed.): Egypt - Temple of the Whole World/Ägypten - Tempel der ganzen Welt, Studies in Honour of Jan Assmann, Boston/Leiden 2003, S. 81-94 Paul Ghalioungui, Les plus anciennes femmes-médecins de l'histoire, BIFAO 75 (1975), pp.159-164
o F. Ll. Griffith, The Petrie Papyri: Hieratic Papyri from Kahun and Gurob
o Herodotus, Histories II
o Bruno Halioua, Bernard Ziskind, M. B. DeBevoise, Medicine in the days of the pharaohs, Harvard University Press, 2005
o Arthur W. Jones, "Ancient Egyptian Model for the Biological Control of Schistosomiasis" in Proceedings of the Oklahome Academy of Science, vol. 55 (1975) pp.136-142
o Jürgen Kraus, Die Demographie des Alten Ägypten
o M. Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature
o A. Lucas, Ancient Egyptian Materials and Industries
o G. Maspero, Etudes de mythologie et d'achéologie égyptiennes III
o A. G. McDowell, Village Life in Ancient Egypt, Oxford University Press, 1999
o Andreas Nerlich, Albert Zink, Leben und Krankheit im alten Ägypten, Bayerisches Ärzteblatt 8, 2001
o Andreas G. Nerlich, Franz Parsche, Irmgard Wiest, Peter Schramel, Udo Löhrs: Extensive pulmonary haemorrhage in an Egyptian mummy, Virchows Arch (1995) 427:423-429, Springer-Verlag
o Eva Panagiotakopulu, Pharaonic Egypt and the origins of the plague, Journal of Biogeography (2004) 31
o Pliny, Natural History
o J. F. Quack, Die Rolle des heiligen Tieres im Buch vom Tempel, IBAES IV, 2004
o Jerome C. Rose, Paleopathology of the Commoners at Tell Amarna, Egypt, Akhenaten's capital city, Mem. Inst. Oswaldo Cruz, Rio de Janeiro, Vol. 101(Suppl. II): 73-76, 2006
o George Rosen, Journal of the history of medicine and allied sciences, Yale University. Dept. of the History of Medicine, Project Muse, published by H. Schuman, 1979
o Serge Sauneron, A propos d'un pronostic de naissance, BIFAO 60 (1960)
o Serge Sauneron, Une recette égyptienne de collyre, BIFAO 57 (1958)
o Walter Scheidel, Age and health in Roman Egypt, Version 1.0, February 2010, Princeton/Stanford Working Papers in Classics, Stanford University
o Jean-Claude Schwarz, "La médecine dentaire dans l'Égypte pharaonique" in Bulletin de la Société d'Égyptologie, Genève 2 (Novembre 1979)
o Marvin I. Schwarz, Talmadge E. King, Interstitial lung disease, B.C. Decker, 2003
o Bernard Ziskind, Bruno Halioua; La conception du coeur dans l’Égypte ancienne, M/S : Médecine sciences, Volume 20
o Zucconi, Laura M. (2007), Medicine and Religion in Ancient Egypt, Religion Compass 1 (1) January 2007, pp.26–37
References
o Breasted, J.H. The Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus (University of Chicago Press: University of Chicago, 1930)
o Brothwell, D. "Major Congenital Anomalies of the Skeleton," in Diseases in Antiquity: A Survey of Disease, Injuries, and Surgery in Early
Populations (eds.) A.T. Sandison and D. Brothwell (Charles C. Thomas: Springfield, 1967)
o Bryan, P.W. The Papyrus Ebers (Geoffrey Bles: London, 1930)
o Buikstra, J.E.; Baker, B.J.; Cook, D.C. "What Disease Plagues the Ancient Egyptians? A Century of Controversy Considered," In Biological
Anthropology and the Study of Ancient Egypt (eds.) W,V. Davies and R. Walter (British Museum Press: London, 1993)
o Dasen, V. Dwarfs in Ancient Egypt and Greece (Clarendon Press: Oxford, 1993)
o Dawson, W.R. and E.P. Uphill Who Was Who in Egyptology (Egyptian Exploration Society: London, 1993)
o Jonckheere, F. "Le Bossu des Mussées Royaux D'Art et D'Histoire de Bruxelles," Chronique D'Égypt (45) 25, 1958.
o Millet, N.; Hart, G.; Reyman, T.; Zimerman, A.; Lewein, P. "ROM I: Mummification for the Common People," in Mummies, Disease, and
Ancient Cultures (eds.) Aiden and Eve Cockburn (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1980)
o Morse, D. "Tuberculosis," in Diseases in Antiquity: A Survey of Diseases, Injuries, and Surgery in Early Populations (eds.) A.T. Sandison
and D. Brothwell (Charles Thomas: Springfield, 1967)
o Morse, D.; Brothwell, D.; Ucko, P.J. "Tuberculosis in Ancient Egypt," in American Review of Respiratory Diseases (90), 1964)
o Nunn, J.F. Ancient Egyptian Medicine (University of Oklahoma Press: Norman, 1996)
o Ruffer, M.A. "Potts'che Krankheit an Einer Ägyptischer Mumie aus der Zeiy der 21 Dynastie," in Zur Historischen Biologie der
Krankheiserreger (3), 1910
o "On Dwarfs and Other Deformed Persons," Bulletin de Societé D'Archéologie D'Alexandrie (13)1, 1911
o Sandison, A.T. "Diseases in Ancient Egypt," in Mummies, Disease, and Ancient Cultures (eds.) Aiden and Eve Cockburn (Cambridge
University Press: Cambridge, 1980)
o Schrumph-Pierron, B. "La Mal de Pott en Égypt 4000 Ans Avant Notre Ére," Aesculpe (23)1933
