The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of Humanity (The Norton History of Science)

Athenian sculpture and painting revered the human form, proudly displaying its naked magnificence and finding in its geometrical forms echoes of the fundamental harmonies of nature, tradition was thus begun that would climax in the Renaissance image of ‘Vitruvian Man’, the representation of the naked male figure inscribed at the centre of the cosmo

since mummification aimed to preserve the body intact, embalmers did not open cadavers up; they eviscerated and extracted the organs through small incisions.

‘Life is short, the art long, opportunity fleeting, experience fallacious, judgment difficult,’ proclaims the first of the Hippocratic aphorisms, outlining the arduous but honourable labour of the physician.

To cure night-blindness fried ox liver was to be taken – possibly a tried-and-tested procedure, as liver is rich in vitamin

if the convulsive patient behaved in a goatlike way, or ground his teeth, the cause allegedly lay in Hera, the mother of the gods; Hecate, the goddess of sorcery, was to blame if the sufferer experienced nightmares and delirium;

Disease is a social development no less than the medicine that combats it.

Rotting food and faeces clogging the system were considered perilous, hence the need to prevent pus formation and to cleanse the innards with laxatives.

Empedocles (fl. mid-5th century BC), regarded nature as composed of a small number of basic elements (earth, air, fire, and water) combining into temporarily stable mixtures.

The teachings of antiquity,

A doctor causing the death of a slave would have to replace him.