Excerpt:
Although the Greeks created rational medicine, their work was not always or even fully scientific in the modern sense of the term. Like other Greek pioneers of science, the doctors were prone to think that much more could be discovered by mere reflection and argument than by practice and experiment. For in their time there was not yet a distinction between philosophy and science, including medicine. Hippocrates was the first to separate medicine from philosophy and disprove the idea that disease was a punishment for sin. Much of the traditional treatment for injuries and ailments practiced by the Greeks stemmed from folk medicine, a characteristic shared by the Greeks with other societies to this day.
Annotation:
Antiqua Medicina is an exhibit created by the University of Virginia Health Sciences Center. This electronic display was generated from materials assembled for a print exhibit of the same name created in fall 1996. The exhibit is broken into 18 'rooms' that trace the history of medicine from Homer to Vasalius. Subjects including Hippocrates, Galen, military medicine and sanitation are covered; the essays provide an interesting introduction to the history of medicine. Scholars may also find some of the many images to be useful.