Medicine: Did you mean...?

Magic and medicine in ancient Egypt were understood as gifts from the god Heka, who presided over both, and were used together – or interchangeably – by medical professionals in treating patients. 'Magic' was recognized as the act of drawing...

Interior View of the Medicine Lodge, Mandan O‑kee-pa Ceremony, oil on canvas by George Catlin, 1832. Smithsonian American Art Museum

Winnebago Medicine Bundle, Nebraska, United States, 1850-60. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

The Persian manuscript copy of The Canon of Medicine by Ibn Sina (Avicenna). Museum and Mausoleum of Avicenna, Hamedan, Iran.

Medicine in the ancient world was often combined with what we would consider magic, especially in Ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt. In Mesopotamia, the goddess Gula who is also known as Ninkarrak and Ninisinna presided over health and healing...

Geronimo (l. c. 1829-1909), Apache medicine man and war chief. Photograph titled Geronimo (Goyaałé), a Bedonkohe Apache, kneeling with rifle, 1887, by Ben Wittick, 1887. National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C.

Native American medicine bag, illustration from the Annual Archaeological Report, 1915, by Rowland B. Orr, published in Ontario Sessional Papers, 1916, No. 17-18, 1916.

A Chiricahua-Apache medicine man in the traditional Apache dwelling of a wickiup with his family in 1883. The Chiricahua are one of the six bands of the Apache nation. Photograph by A. Frank Randall. Denver Public Library Special Collections...

Hastobíga, a Navajo Hataałii ("medicine man"), photograph by Edward S. Curtis, 1904. Smithsonian Libraries and Archives, Washington, D.C.

The Hidatsa Sun Dance Ritual (also known as Hidatsa Sun Dance) is a Native American story of the Hidatsa nation illustrating the practice of an individual initiating the Sun Dance for personal reasons, in this case, to win the hand of the...