The canon of medicine: Did you mean...?

Hippocrates was born on the Greek island of Kos in the 5th century BCE, and he became the most famous physician in antiquity. He established a medical school on the island, wrote many treatises on medical matters, and is, through...

Physicians in ancient Rome manufactured a wide variety of pharmaceuticals used to treat health concerns. Roman medicine was highly sophisticated, and Roman medical literature describes early antiseptics, narcotics...

The spices clove, nutmeg, and mace originated on only a handful of tiny islands in the Indonesian archipelago but came to have a dramatic, far-reaching impact on world trade. In antiquity, they became popular...

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...

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...

Galen (129-216 CE) was a Greek physician, author, and philosopher, working in Rome, who influenced both medical theory and practice until the middle of the 17th century CE. Owning a large, personal library, he wrote hundreds of medical...

Family planning was a topic of vital importance in the ancient Mediterranean. Some of the earliest medical literature from ancient Greece and Rome deals with fertility and reproductive health. Among the numerous...

Ibn Sina and Biruni were two of the most outstanding thinkers to have lived between ancient Greece and the European Renaissance. These two giants of a lost era of enlightenment were born in Central Asia...

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...

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