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Fibroid → fibr (base) + oid (medical suffix)

Fibrosis → fibr (base) + osis (noun forming medical suffix)

Fibrectomy → fibr (base) + ectomy (combining form)

Fibromyalgia → fibr (base) + o (CV) + mya (word internal medical prefix) + algia (noun forming medical suffix)

Building medicinal terms!

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Base Practice: “Medicine in Classical Antiquity” Met Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History

Medicine in classical antiquity was a collection of beliefs, knowledge, and experience. What we know of early medical practice is generated from archaeological evidence, especially from Roman sites—medical instruments, votive objects, prescription stamps—and from ancient literary sources. Not all medicine in the ancient world was transmitted through writing, but also verbally. Most of the literary evidence is preserved in treatises attributed to the Greek physician Hippocrates (ca. 460–370 B.C.) and the Roman physician Galen (129–199/216BC).

The scope of treatment included incantations, invoking the gods, and the use of magical herbs, amulets, and charms. Drug sellers, root cutters, midwives, gymnastic trainers, and surgeons all offered treatment, advice, and diagnoses. With no formal qualifications, any individual could offer medical services, and literary evidence for early medical practice shows doctors working hard to distinguish their own ideas and treatments from those of their competitors. The roots of Greek medicine were many and included ideas procured from Egypt and the Near East, particularly Babylonia.

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Beginnings of Ancient Greek Medicine:

Early Greek people believed diseases were curses from the gods (ex. gastritis was a curse from Apollo because of how it looked like swallow droppings which is his sacred bird)

Apollo was associated with healing, as was his son Asklepius (Aesclepius to the Romans) who was taught by Chiron and regarded as the first doctor.

People would come sleep in the temple of Asklepios hoping to be cured by his snakes (associated with idea of rejuvenation due to skin-shedding) of what ailed them.

His name means "to cut open"!

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Greek Medicine: The Gods

Who are some of the gods/mythological characters associated with medicine in Ancient Greek mythology?

Apollo
Asclepius
Chiron
Hygeia

Greek religion, medicine, and magic are connected, but not the same.

Each branch has overlapping roles in an individual’s life
No concrete definition of religion in the ancient world

The gods played an important role in Ancient Greek medicine because of the influence of analogy.

Basic idea being that what happens outside the body also happens within (and vise versa).
Using comparison to understand the human body. Ex: sympathetic magic

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Oedipus: Plague & Analogy:

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The four humors:

Much of the Greek understanding of medicine was based on the Theory of Humors in which the four Humors determined a persons physical health.

Sanguine, associated with blood (cheerful and lively).

Phlegmatic, associated with phlegm (calm and tough).

Melancholic, associated with black bile (gloomy and anxious).

Choleric, associated with yellow bile (lively and sometimes irascible).

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Medical Writers of the Classical Period

-Almaeon of Croton (fl. 500 BCE?)

“On Nature,”

-Empedocles of Acragas (fl. 460 BCE)

“On Nature,” “Pharmaka”

-“Hippocrates” of Kos (fl. 420? BCE)

Hippocratic Corpus--60+ medical writings

-Plato (fl. 390s BCE)

Timaeus

-Aristotle (fl. 360s BCE)

HA, PA, GA, On Respiration, On the Senses etc...

-Theophrastus (fl. 340s)

Enquiry into Plants, Causes of Plants (among 225 other books)

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Medical Writers of the Hellenistic Era

Diocles of Carystus (fl. 330’s BCE)

Gynaecology, Bandages, Treatments, The Surgery, Affection, Rhizomatikon (Root-cutting)

Herophilus of Chalcedon (fl. 300 BCE)

On Pulses, Anatomy, Midwifery, Therapeutics, Dietetics and Commentaries on Hippocrates

Erasistratus (300s BCE)

Fragments, mostly preserved in Galen

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Hippocrates! The beginnings of medical ethics!

Father of Greek “rational” medicine.

Believed disease is not caused by the gods and founded a medical school on the island of Cos.

Many medical treatises on anatomy, physiology, prognosis, surgery, gynecology, obstetrics, pediatrics, diet, and medical ethics all attributed to him.

“Rational" style of medicine differs to traditional treatment at the time.

Doctors basically just set up shop after they felt they had learned enough to practice.

According to "Decorum", a doctor should be calm but cheery, never ask for money before treatment, and shouldn't discuss with condition with the patient.

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The Hippocratic Oath

"I swear by Apollo the physician, and Aesculapius the surgeon, likewise Hygeia and Panacea, and call all the gods and goddesses to witness, that I will observe and keep this underwritten oath, to the utmost of my power and judgment.

I will reverence my teacher who taught me the art. Equally with my parents, will I allow him things necessary for his support, and will consider his sons as brothers. I will teach them my art without reward or agreement; and I will impart all my acquirement, instructions, and whatever I know, to my master's children, as to my own; and likewise to all my pupils, who shall bind and tie themselves by a professional oath, but to none else.

With regard to healing the sick, I will devise and order for them the best diet, according to my judgment and means; and I will take care that they suffer no hurt or damage.

Further, I will comport myself and use my knowledge in a godly manner.

Whatsoever house I may enter, my visit shall be for the convenience and advantage of the patient; and I will willingly refrain from doing any injury or wrong from falsehood, and (in an especial manner) from acts of an amorous nature, whatever may be the rank of those who it may be my duty to cure, whether mistress or servant, enslaved or free.

Whatever, in the course of my practice, I may see or hear, whatever I may happen to obtain knowledge of, if it be not proper to repeat it, I will keep silent. If I faithfully observe this oath, may I thrive and prosper in my fortune and profession, and live in the estimation of posterity; or on breach thereof, may the reverse be my fate!"

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Treatments in Ancient Greece:

Cypriot ear probe

Sarcophagus with Greek Physician

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Greek Medical Papyri

From Greco-Roman Egypt (100s BCE to 400s CE)
Composed of a bunch of “magical books”
Simultaneously a source of indiginous Egyptian medical practices, and also a Hellenized version that exemplifies the interactions between Greek, Roman, and Egyptian cultures.
Spells that cure ailments of various kinds, love spells, curses, binding spells, spells for favor or luck… etc.

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Preventive spell:

Defixione example:

Curses written (usually) on sheets of lead that were then folded, pierced with a nail, and deposited in wells or by specific landmarks

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Temple of Asclepius:

Two major locations: Epidaurus and Kos.
Treatments here include: ritual purifications, fasts, prayers, and sacrifices.
Important process of healing → incubation, during which the god appeared to the afflicted one in a dream and prescribed a treatment.
A central part of this system was votive offerings → you dedicate a terracotta, or even sometimes bronze, version of the body part which was healed during your stay.

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The iamata (healing stories) of Epidaurus

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The wandering womb:

Hysteria: the wandering womb

The ancient Greeks believed the uterus was “a living thing within another living thing” and that many pathologies in women were the result of a displaced uterus.

Thus, “hysteria” literally means “a wandering womb.”

Text from Aretaeus, a physician from Cappadocia:

In the middle of the flanks of women lies the womb, a female viscus, closely resembling an animal; for it is moved of itself hither and thither in the flanks, also upwards in a direct line to below the cartilage of the thorax, and also obliquely to the right or to the left, either to the liver or the spleen, and it likewise is subject to prolapsus downwards, and in a word, it is altogether erratic. It delights also in fragrant smells, and advances towards them; and it has an aversion to fetid smells, and flees from them; and, on the whole, the womb is like an animal within an animal.

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