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

Post-Vesalian investigations dramatically advanced knowledge of the structures and functions of the living organism.

The teachings of antiquity,

they might even be blown into the urethra through a tube.

The historical record is like the night sky: we see a few stars and group them into mythic constellations. But what is chiefly visible is the darkness.

‘The art has three factors, the disease, the patient, the physician,’ wrote Hippocrates,

Nowhere in the Hippocratic writings is there any hint of disease being caused or cured by the gods.

analogies between the four elements of external nature (fire, water, air and earth) and the four humours or bodily fluids (blood, phlegm, choler or yellow bile and black bile), whose balance determined health.

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.

blood predominated in spring and among the young, precautions against excess could be taken, either by eliminating blood-rich foods, like red meat, or by blood-letting (phlebotomy) to purge excess.