Health Care in Ancient Greece: Treatments, Surgery, Dentistry | Early European History And Religion

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HEALTH CARE IN ANCIENT GREECE

Greek physician and patient

Greeks initially believed that illness and poor health were punishments delivered to them by an angry Apollo and the only way to get well again was to pray to Apollo. Health-restoring powers were also ascribed to other gods and goddesses. Apollo’s son Aesculapius, who reportedly learned how to keep people healthy from a centaur, was the God of Medicine. Greeks often prayed to him and his daughter Panacea (source of the word “panacea”) and his son Hygeia (source of the word “hygiene”).

Health care in ancient Greece developed in conjunction with the strenuous training of athletes. The Ptolemaic Greeks created a great center of medical scholarship and treatment in Alexandria. Priests in Aesculapius temples of health are said to have ushered patients into special rooms and ordered them to sleep. When they awoke a treatment was based on their dreams. Cures that were successful were recorded as miracles.

According to the Metropolitan Museum of Art: “Medicine in classical antiquity was a collection of beliefs, knowledge, and experience. What we know of early medical practice is based upon archaeological evidence, especially from Roman sites—medical instruments, votive objects, prescription stamps, etc.—and from ancient literary sources. Most of the literary evidence is preserved in treatises attributed to the Greek physician Hippocrates (ca. 460–370 B.C.) and the Roman physician Galen. “From the earliest times, treatments involved incantations, invoking the gods, and the use of magical herbs, amulets, and charms. “In ancient Greece and Rome, Asklepios was revered as the patron god of medicine. [Source: Colette Hemingway, Independent Scholar,Metropolitan Museum of Art, October 2004, metmuseum.org \^/]

There were several factors that influenced the development of medicine in ancient Greece. First, there was the potent force of religion with its gods and goddesses who dealt with healing, death and pestilence. Then there was the influence of trading contacts such as Egypt (which had learned much from its mummification practices) and Mesopotamia (which had published comprehensive medical documents on clay tablets well before 1000 B.C.). From these and other Eastern areas, the Greeks also developed an encyclopedic range of herbal medicines. [Source: Canadian Museum of History |]

To cap it off, there was the sad result of war - a variety of wounds and amputations caused by arrows, swords, spears and accidents- and described so vividly and accurately in Homer's Iliad. Just dealing with these casualties provided lots of experience and practical information applicable elsewhere. Although Greek religion frowned on human dissection in the Archaic and Classical periods, after the founding of the Alexandrian School that changed. Physicians and researchers made advances in some areas that were not surpassed until the 18th Century. |

Websites on Ancient Greece: Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Greece sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Hellenistic World sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; BBC Ancient Greeks bbc.co.uk/history/; Perseus Project - Tufts University; perseus.tufts.edu ; ; Gutenberg.org gutenberg.org; Illustrated Greek History, Dr. Janice Siegel, Hampden–Sydney College hsc.edu/drjclassics ; The Greeks: Crucible of Civilization pbs.org/empires/thegreeks ; Cambridge Classics External Gateway to Humanities Resources web.archive.org/web; Ancient Greek Sites on the Web from Medea showgate.com/medea ; Greek History Course from Reed web.archive.org; Classics FAQ MIT classics.mit.edu

Treatment and Surgery in Ancient Greece

20120222-Health Bronze_forceps.jpg
Bronze forceps
A set of Greek medical instruments consisted of catheters, a rectal speculum, scoops, probes, hooks, forceps, traction hooks and bone chisels. Cauterizing (burning of part of a body to remove or close off a part of it) was a standard medical procedure in ancient times. Brain-swelling was sometimes relived with trephination, an ancient medical technique in which holes were cut into the brain to relieve pressure. It was procedure thought to be only performed on the elite.

Small bronze instruments that may have been part of a physician’s or pharmacist’s gear include several probes, one being double, spatulae, spoon-probes, and two scalpels or bistouries. The spatulae were used for preparing and spreading ointments, and also by painters in mixing colors. [Source: “The Daily Life of the Greeks and Romans”, Helen McClees Ph.D, Gilliss Press, 1924]

Broken bones, surprisingly, were often not set, meaning that victims were disfigured for the rest of the lives. Other times bones were set with skill. "This was a remarkable surgical procedure," an archaeologist told National Geographic, displaying a thigh bone from an ancient Greek skeleton. "Someone used a lot of force to pull the lower part of the broken bone down, reset it, and keep it in place for weeks against the enormous pressures of contracting muscles."

Early Ear Surgery

Candida Moss wrote in the, Daily Beast: Though surgical procedures to relieve pressure and fluid buildup are now common and relatively risk free, they only became widespread in the late 19th century. The real pioneer of ear surgery was the Greek-speaking second-century physician Galen of Pergamum. Galen, who recognized the general benefit of draining abscesses, may hint at this procedure in his writings, but there is considerable debate about whether or not he ever performed the surgery himself.[Source: Candida Moss, Daily Beast, March 6, 2022]

Even without surgery there were numerous ingestible ancient remedies for ear trouble. Galen prescribed honey for ear pain. As seasonal allergies can cause ear discomfort and some claim this can be alleviated by ingesting local honey, it’s possible (though unlikely) that some patients may actually have benefitted from this treatment. A less appetizing treatment for ear pain, also attributed to Galen, was to boil dung beetles in olive oil and drip the resulting concoction into the affected ear. This treatment is noteworthy given that beetles are known to sometimes invade the ear — and the rectum, but that’s a whole other story — with undesirable results. Close your screen doors at night, people.

Abortions in Ancient Greece

Abortions were performed in ancient times, says North Carolina State history professor John Riddle, and discussions about featured many of the same arguments we hear today. The Greeks and Romans made a distinction between a fetus with features and one without features. The latter could be aborted without having to worry about legal or religious reprisals. Plato advocated population control in the ideal city state and Aristotle suggested that "if conception occurs in excess...have abortion induced before sense and life have begun in the embryo.”

The Stoics believed the human soul appeared when first exposed to cool air, and the potential for a soul existed at conception. Hippocrates warned physicians in his oath not to use one kind of abortive suppository, but the statement was misinterpreted as a blanket condemnation of all of abortion. John Chrystom, the Byzantine bishop of Constantinople compared abortion to murder in A.D. 390, but a few years earlier Bishop Gregory of Nyssa said the unformed embryo could not be considered a human being. [Riddle has written a book called “ Contraception and Abortion from the Ancient World to the Renaissance” ].

Ancient Greek Dentistry

Ancient Egyptian dentistry

The most common form of dental treatment in ancient times seems to have been tooth extraction. Aristotle obviously had not bothered to look first when he declared that men had more teeth than women.

On the subject of dentistry, Hippocrates wrote in “ Affections” , "the bones, the teeth and the tendons have cold as an enemy and, warmth as a friend; because it is from these parts that comes the spasms...that cold induces, heat removes."

Many Greeks suffered from painful tooth decay. "There were no dentists to extract teeth," one archaeologist who examined ancient Greek skeletons told National Geographic, "People were walking around with raging toothaches. We've seen many teeth completely decayed or lost."

Hippocrates erroneously observed that tooth "pain derives from mucous insinuating itself under the roots of the teeth. Teeth are eroded and become decayed partly by mucous, and partly by food, when they are by nature weak and badly fixed in the mouth.”

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons, The Louvre, The British Museum

Text Sources: Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Greece sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Hellenistic World sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; BBC Ancient Greeks bbc.co.uk/history/; Canadian Museum of History, Perseus Project - Tufts University; perseus.tufts.edu ; MIT Classics Online classics.mit.edu ; Gutenberg.org, Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, New York Times, Washington Post, Live Science, Discover magazine, Archaeology magazine, The New Yorker, Encyclopædia Britannica, Wikipedia, Reuters, Associated Press, The Guardian, AFP and various books and other publications.

Last updated November 2024