Overview

Ancient Greeks and Romans had extensive knowledge of and innovative ideas about medicine. Scientists such as Hippocrates and Galen wrote sophisticated books about medicine between 400 B.C. and A.D. 200. For the next several hundred years, advances in medicine were fairly minimal. Beginning in about A.D. 850, key texts of ancient Greece and Rome were rediscovered by Islamic scientists. The subsequent translation and dissemination of these works throughout western Europe and the Middle East led to a revival of Greco-Roman ideas that influenced medicine well into the Renaissance several hundred years later.

Background

The need to alleviate ills and cure man's diseases has always existed, and ancient scientists made important discoveries about anatomy and physiology. Building upon the knowledge of ancient Egyptians and others, the philosophers of ancient Greece produced sophisticated...