It is for these reasons that people believe the Egyptians gave the most help into developing medicine and health. But there were a few reasons that put that opinion into a different perspective; the main of which being the fact that they relied too much in God and in a situation where they had to choose between God and practical medicine, they almost always chose the side of God. This point is better explained in this comparison table:
They believed that everything happened because of God and to overcome the problem, disease or illness, they had to repent to the Gods and hope they will take mercy upon them. This, they noticed, did not work – but they continued this for many years because of the fear of their God’s wrath. After all of this, there was still the problem that their ides weren’t developed fully and many mistakes were made; plus the fact that their operations were practised under unhygienic situations. This allowed for many other, more serious illnesses to occur. Another big problem the Egyptians had was that they had no understanding of personal hygiene and also did not eat enough of the necessary foods. It is for these reasons that I do not concur with people who believe the Egyptians cause the breakthroughs in medicine.
Other people believe that Greeks gave us the most assistance to develop medicine and health. This is because they had two main contributors, Hippocrates and Galen. Hippocrates was Greek physician born in 460 BCE in the island of Cos, Greece. He studied the effects that each disease took on people, what we would now call the symptoms. He was the first to introduce the idea that illness was caused by rational reasons, not the wrath of God. These ideas and methods were reason why I became the “father of medicine”. His main idea was that of the Four Humours:
: Using this as a sort of guide by which he can determine what the illness is based on the time of year and the type of bodily liquid involved. There was one big problem with this – he was wrong. The problems within a body were not just based on four bodily liquids and the way he sorted out the problem was also wrong. For instance, if someone came to see him in spring with a problem, he would deduce that the patient has too much blood. Therefore he would cut open a vein and allow some blood to be lost. This is just one of the wrongful decisions made using this chart.
On the whole, the Greeks took vast steps in the development of medicine that is also the reason people believe that the Greeks contributed the most.
I believe, along with many other people, that the Romans contributed the most to the development of medicine. The problems with Hippocrates’ ideas was that they did not know it was wrong for hundreds of years until Galen came along in the Roman Empire and proved Hippocrates theories wrong. Galen trained at the temple of Asclepius where they believed in Hippocratic views mixed with superstition. He then went on to train at in Alexandria, home of the Great Library where all the written knowledge of the “civilised world” was kept. Due to this training, Galen became an anatomy expert. But there were serious errors in Galen’s work. Most of it was right because of his work on the “human” gladiators, but parts were completely incorrect due to the fact that he could only work on pigs and gorillas at one point.
Not only was there the input of Galen, but also that fact that Rome had conquered many other countries, meaning that they had a n understanding of all of the little medical advances discovered from every country they took over. They also had practical knowledge of the fact that they can eliminate many diseases from their cities by using running water rather than stagnant water where people drink bathe in, excrete in and drink from. Through a series of well thought-out methods, the Romans build aqueducts. These were giant ramps in which fresh water from a nearby reservoir can e transported continually to the people of the city. The Romans also built underground tunnels – modern day sewers – to dispose of sewage safely and properly.
This meant that the Romans had all of the ides of the Egyptians and Greeks, through conquering them, and their own ideas. This is the reason for people, and I, to believe that the Romans contributed the most to the development of medicine