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
Pictures from the Past of the Healing Arts (Guide to the Exhibition) I. Medicine in the antiquity and during the Middle Ages Mcdicinc is almost as old as man himself. His instincts, needs and experience taught man the art of healing. In the first part of the exhibition we have presented the period from the Neolithic to the Late Middle Ages. The material here illustrates to such outstanding peaks of ancient medicine as the eight Egyptian medical papyri, Hippocrates and the Classical Greek School, the great physicians of the Roman Empire, and Arabic medicine. Whereas the primitive curing of prehistoric man was often imbued with superstitions and fear of the unknown forces of nature, classical Oriental medicine made clear observations on the natural world. Nevertheless, it happened later in Kos, a Greek island, that Hippocrates and his followers elaborated an entirely rational system which was based on the classification of the symptoms of different diseases. The medical knowledge of ancient Greece was further developed by Roman physicians, especially in the field of surgery. After the decline of the Byzantine medicine, which produced a medical theory of strict, unchangeable schemes, the scientific results of Hellenism were preserved, and in some respects further developed by the Islam. 1. Prehistoric and primitive medicine Producing reasonable explanation about the causes of different diseases was certainly beyond the limits of prehistoric curing. We can surely say that in this period medicine was characteristically based on superstitions, misbeliefs and mystical theories. Within the limits of their knowledge, however, they made good use of their rudimentary instruments. Collecting drug plants that might be applied as pain-killers they have begun a practice surviving ever since. Among the first displays of our exhibition you can see two idols from the Neolithic period. The one presenting the figure of a woman (No. 10) is a cultic progenitrix. The other one that has an elliptic form is known as a vulva (No. 10) i.e. a symbol 27
