Pictures from the Past of the Healing Arts / Orvostörténeti Közlemények – Supplementum 18-19. (Budapest, 2000)
Pictures from the Past of the Healing Arts - Guide to the Exhibition
used to demonstrate constantia (constancy). The last amulet (No. 17) is an Uaj-pillar which was used in order to safeguard re-awakening or rebirth. The blue scarabcus amulet (No. 13) made of faience, placed above the others, is surprisingly big. It had a similar purpose i.e. it was used for assuring survival and resurrection. The photo showing the temple of Com-Ombo (No. 12) that illustrates surgical and obstetrical equipment gives a good impression about the excellence of Egyptian surgery and midewifery. 3. Greek and Roman medicine We have presented the reliefs, that illustrate Greek and Roman medicine, together in the same show-case. Hippocrates (460-377 B.C.), the most famous doctor in ancient Greece, was titled as Father of Medicine. His medical school and sanatorium on the island of Kos developed such principles and methods in curing that have been used ever since. We have exhibited a book, (Magni Hippocratis Coi opera omnia, Leyđeñ 1665), which is a bilingual, Latin and Greek compendium of his works. It contains everything that had been ascribed to Hippocrates up to the 17th century. We know today that the number of texts, which were undoubtedly written by him, is much smaller. The tiny statuette of Hippocrates (No.3) portrays the doctor in classical style. It was made by an unknown French sculptor in the 18th ccntury. There is a row of Greek coins in the cabinet (No.4.) which have some medical reference. Two of them on the left were made in Pcrgamon in the 2nd ccntury B.C. Both is illustrated with Asclepios' portraits on their reverse. The other three are as follows: a Thracian, with a Hygeia figure, AD 175; a Phrygian, with an Asclepios, 2nd c. AD; and one from Mar ia Nopolis (Mocsia Inferior), with Asclcpios' snake on the reverse, from the 2nd ccntury B.C. There are a few statuettes from the Hellenistic period (c. 330-30 B.C.) on show. Because the figures present pathological deformations some of the scholars have supposed that they might have been used for demonstrations in the mcdical school of Smyrna. Half a millenium after Hippocrates Galen (130-200 AD), another young Greek from Pcrgamon began his studies in the medical schools of Smyrna, and continued it in Corinth and Alexandria. This man became the other most distinguished physician of the ancient world later. His writings had been among the most basic texts in every mcdical curriculum until Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564), the famous Dutch anatomist, published his more accurate descriptions of human body in 1543. Moreover, Galen's physiology had been unchallenged until William Harvey's (1578-1657) discovery of blood circulation in 1628. Nevertheless, the opus of Galen still kept an important place in anatomical education. The front page of his Anatómia published in Leyđeñ in 1651 refers his longstanding influence (No. 12). 29
