Medicine: Did you mean...?

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

The Origin of Medicine is a Cherokee story on the theme of balance and respect told from the point of view of the animals and plant life. When the animal world turns against humanity for their many abuses, the plants restore...

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...

Vaccines are biological preparations that train the immune system to recognize and respond to specific infectious agents, reducing the risk of disease and its complications...

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...

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...

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...

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