> MEDICINE IN ANCIENT WORLD
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The ancient civilisations developed favourable and, at the same time, opposing conditions to the progress of the medicine. The Aztec inherited much knowledge from their most ancient cultures. Their obsidian knives were sharp as modern scalpels, the concept of hygiene and cleanliness was very advanced and their superficial operations could be more successful than those made in Europe until the 19th century. In fact pre-Columbian cultures gave not much value to human life and, consequently, to the medical profession. The lack of scientific method was provided for a deep natural medicine knowledge, hand down orally. From every time, plants were been studied to derive accurately prepared drugs for internal and external use.
Here there are some examples: Asian helm was already known as narcotic, juniper as diuretic and disinfectant, wine produced from vine was used as generic anaesthetic, aconite treated rheumatisms and fevers, poppy as opium for painkiller and anaesthetic and mint treated digestive diseases and was used as anti-infiammatory. The list could continue for a long time.
It is surprising to verify that ancient civilizations, as the Hindu, had achieved a high degree of specialisation in the invention of surgery instruments for operations of lithotomy and skin transplant. Besides achieved extraordinary results in arts, literature and philosophy, Greeks introduced the medical figure, who was devout to the god Asclepius. Important character of the new Greek medicine was Hippocrates (who lived between the 5th and the 4th century b.C.) whose we report a significant aphorism: “What drugs will not cure, the knife will; what the knife will not cure, the cautery will; what the cautery will not cure must be considered incurable”. Hippocrates represented the birth of a medicine free from theurgical and philosophical assumptions, based on observation and method.
