Greek Medicine Research Articles

Muslims and Christians in the Levant: A Shared Culture, An Evolving Concept of Citizenship

Muslims and Christians in the Levant:A Shared Culture, An Evolving Concept of Citizenship Kail C. Ellis (bio) Introduction Recent scholarship has endeavored to counter a widespread impression that the Middle East is a homogenous Arab and Muslim ethnic entity. Although Christians once constituted large and important communities in today's Arab world, later scholars tended to regard them as tools of Western interests or as victims of Muslim rulers whose histories are irrelevant to understanding the contemporary Middle East. An additional impediment to studying Christian Arab history was the reluctance of some scholars to approach questions dealing with sectarianism and communal politics. Yet, as this essay will explain, the record shows that Christians have been an integral part of Middle East society and culture throughout history and can and must be enabled and encouraged to do so now and in the future, not only in the interest of social peace and justice but also for the benefit of local society and culture as a whole. [End Page 1] The rise of political Islam in the 1970s and the resulting Islamization of Middle Eastern politics marked a reevaluation of the approach of overlooking Arab Christian history. Paul Rowe, Laura Robson, and Sidney Griffith, among others, have challenged the image of the Middle East as a homogenous Muslim region that is in opposition to the predominately Christian West.1 Sidney Griffith, for example, traced the spread of Christianity from the Holy Land westward throughout the Roman Empire as taking place simultaneously with the spread of the Gospel eastward to the Persian Empire, into China and southward into Arabia and India. This history was recorded in the widely spoken dialect of Aramaic, called Syriac and attests to the presence of Christians in the region some 600 years before the rise of Islam. The Qur'an also provides strong evidence of the Christian presence in the region, as Arabic-speaking Christians were the audience to whom much of the Qur'an was addressed.2 When Christians assimilated into Arab and Islamic society and embraced the Arabic language by the end of the eighth century, modern scholars tended to interpret this development as evidence of their marginalization and therefore as a topic unworthy of study. As a consequence, this superficial interpretation robbed Middle Eastern Christians of agency and of the positive view that by adopting the Arabic language, Christians could better express their identities in the Arabic idiom of the Arab Islamic culture of which they had become an integral part. By the tenth century, this interpretation seemed vindicated when Christians, still the majority of the population in the Islamic polity, were actively engaged in the development of Arab culture, literature, and the sciences. To support this view, Griffith cites the work of Christian scholars who, along with Jewish and Muslim scholars in the Islamic environment of Baghdad during the Abbasid caliphate in the ninth century, translated the works of Greek philosophy, science, and medicine into Arabic and Latin. Their contributions lasted from the ninth-century in Iraq into the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries in Egypt.3 Although relations between Christians, Jews, and Muslim during this period were often intellectually and culturally complementary, they were [End Page 2] also "confrontational and cooperative at the same time."4 Griffith maintains that from the thirteenth century until the beginning of the twentieth century, "numerous disabling factors" intervened to disrupt the complementarity of their relationship such as the evolution in Islamic religious thinking, the numerical decline of Christians and, finally, the demographic insignificance of Christians in some areas of the Middle East.5 Griffith and other prominent scholars maintain that the intellectual and cultural influence of Arab Christians in the Middle East has seldom been told. Even more damaging is the impact of this neglect today, as it has led Western scholarship to regard Christendom as coterminous with the Latin Middle Ages and to regard Eastern Christians as schismatic and even as a heretical people who left the Church centuries ago.6 Dhimmitude: Christians as "Minorities" The concept of "minority" as it pertained to Christians and other non-Muslim communities developed gradually in the Middle East. Its basis was laid by the Ottomans, who, after their victories...

Status of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Greece and its Approach on COVID-19 Pandemic.

Although acupuncture was first introduced to Greece in about 1938, it was not until 1973 that an institution was created to teach it, where its study was limited to medical doctors (MDs). Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) was not taught to non-MDs until 2004. Even today, TCM has not been integrated into the Greek health system, and in a few exceptions, TCM was mainly associated with pain management. A few private schools teach TCM theory and practice in the fields of acupuncture, moxibustion, herbology, gua sha, and tui na (Chinese massage). This study examines the use of Chinese single herbs and formulas for prevention or treatment during the COVID-19 pandemic in Greece, as well as issues with the availability of Chinese herbs and proposals for substitutes from the traditional Greek medicine point of view.

Advancing urban ethnopharmacology: a modern concept of sustainability, conservation and cross-cultural adaptations of medicinal plant lore in the urban environment.

The discipline 'urban ethnopharmacology' emerged as a collection of traditional knowledge, ancient civilizations, history and folklore being circulated since generations, usage of botanical products, palaeobotany and agronomy. Non-traditional botanical knowledge increases the availability of healthcare and other essential products to the underprivileged masses. Intercultural medicine essentially involves 'practices in healthcare that bridge indigenous medicine and western medicine, where both are considered as complementary'. A unique aspect of urban ethnopharmacology is its pluricultural character. Plant medicine blossomed due to intercultural interactions and has its roots in major anthropological events of the past. Unani medicine was developed by Khalif Harun Al Rashid and Khalif Al Mansur by translating Greek and Sanskrit works. Similarly, Indo-Aryan migration led to the development of Vedic culture, which product is Ayurveda. Greek medicine reached its summit when it travelled to Egypt. In the past few decades, ethnobotanical field studies proliferated, especially in the developed countries to cope with the increasing demands of population expansion. At the same time, sacred groves continued to be an important method of conservation across several cultures even in the urban aspect. Lack of scientific research, validating the efficiency, messy applications, biopiracy and slower results are the main constrains to limit its acceptability. Access to resources and benefit sharing may be considered as a potential solution. Indigenous communities can copyright their traditional formulations and then can collaborate with companies, who have to provide the original inventors with a fair share of the profits since a significant portion of the health economy is generated by herbal medicine. Search string included the terms 'Urban' + 'Ethnopharmacology', which was searched in Google Scholar to retrieve the relevant literature. The present review aims to critically analyse the global concept of urban ethnopharmacology with the inherent plurality of the cross-cultural adaptations of medicinal plant use by urban people across the world.

The Monastic Diet in the Light of Medical Science. Theodoret of Cyrus and Medics on Dates and Figs

The aim of this article is to present the menu of early Christian monks in the context of the findings of Greek and Roman medicine in the field of dietetics. It draws from the passages of Historia religiosa by Theodoret of Cyrus about the consumption of dates and figs by Syrian ascetics. Both species of fruit did not comprise the basis of the monks’ limited diet. Figs and dates were treated as additional food by them, which they ate rarely and in small quantities. According to Theodoret, they did so especially when their bodies were weakened, during long and exhausting fasts. According to modern dietetics, this was justified as both figs and dates are calorie- and nutrientrich foods, which consumed even in small amounts can significantly supplement an adult’s daily balance in this regard. The authors of ancient and medical texts stemming from the tradition of Antiquity (Galen, Oribasius, Antimus, Aëtius of Amida, Paul of Aegina and others) also drew attention to the nutritious quality of dates and figs, in addition to numerous others health-promoting properties (especially in the context of the latter species). However, they further noted that excessive consumption of both fruits could lead to some health problems. In the context of these findings, occasional consumption of dates and figs by Syrian ascetics appears justified, as they could provide their weakened bodies with food of high energy value and nutritious content, whose small amount – and, therefore, fitting in the ideal of mortification – would suffice to improve their health condition.

Burn Care in the Greek and Roman Antiquity.

The last century brought about more rapid new developments in the treatment of burns, which significantly lowered the mortality of burn injuries. However, burns were already treated in antiquity, where the threshold from spirituality to scientific medicine originated. The existing literature on burn treatment is very limited and there are many cross-references, some of them incorrect. The aim of this work by an interdisciplinary team of historians and physicians is to offer a more precise reproduction of the burn treatment of Greek and Roman antiquity using original texts in context and with a modern scientific background. There are many sources from ancient doctors on the subject of burn treatment, as well as the treatment of burned-out wounds and frostbite, which have not yet been mentioned. The literature research also showed an understanding of scientific contexts in ancient medicine, such as antiseptics or rheology. Interestingly, there was a change in burn medicine from everyday Greek medicine to Roman military medicine with other burn patterns. The care of patients using analgetics and the therapy of burn shock arose from the literature. The ancient world is considered to be the foundation of medicine, but it is believed to have been based mainly on shamanism rather than science. However, already more than two millennia ago, burns were correctly assessed and treated according to today’s scientific standards and scientific relationships were recognized.

Cervical spine surgery in the ancient and medieval worlds.

The early historical literature on cervical spine surgery lacks printed material for review, and we can rely only on pathological material from the prehistoric period that has survived as a result of anthropological investigations. After the introduction of Egyptian and early Hellenic medicine, some written material became available. This paper reviews these materials, from both books and manuscripts, in an effort to understand the development of cervical spine surgery from the perspectives of the personalities involved and the early surgical practices used. The review thus considers the following five eras of medicine: 1) prehistoric; 2) Egyptian and Babylonian; 3) Greek and early Byzantine; 4) Middle Eastern; and 5) medieval.

Assessment the studies on the concept of Mizaj (temperament) in Persian Medicine.

Introduction Mizaj or temperament is a main concept in Persian Medicine (PM), which the process of diagnosis, treatment and preventive prescriptions are developed based on it. In this study, the articles written on the concept of Mizaj were reviewed. Method Credited electronic resources, including Pubmed, Scopus, Cochrane Library and web-of-science were searched using keywords Temperament, Mizaj, Mizadj, Midzaj and Mezaj (with the concept of Mizaj in Persian and/or Greek medicine). Search results were limited to English articles, published in 1995-2017. The articles in which temperament had the psychoanalytic aspect or was based on Ayurveda or Chinese/Korean medicine were removed. A team of four PM experts evaluated the method and the results. Results Among the total of 32 articles were published in this field, 14 were review articles, 2 were on animal subject, 14 were on human subject and 2 were surveys for designing questionnaire for people's Mizaj assessment. Most of review studies were just new versions of ancient Persian texts translated into English and the innovations on the subject were few. Studies on animal subject and developing questionnaires were also limited. In some human studies, use of standard questionnaires and homogenous methodology in Mizaj assessment was not considered. Conclusions It seems that studies on temperaments have increased in the past few years but are still at the forefront. In human studies a homogenous method for evaluating temperament has not been used and some of them failed to address the main concept of Mizaj in PM. Therefore, it is necessary to use the original category of Mizaj and to design standard method.

Ancient Greek medicine during Hellenistic age and the Roman Empire

In the Hellenistic Age and during the Roman Empire the greatest influence on the development medicine was exerted by two philosophers: Plato and Aristotle. Their views demonstrated by individual approaches of physicians and medical trends of empiricists, scepticists, dogmatists, methodologists and others. Beginning from the 1st century BC the overwhelming activity of Greek medicine practitioners was transferred to Rome where the most outstanding physicians such as Archagatos, Asclepiades, Temison, Soranos, Athenois, Archigenes and others appeared. In 46 BC all free foreigners practising in Rome were granted citizenship. In the first centuries of the Roman Empire medical practitioner were exempted from tax obligation and released from the performance of public service duties.

Phytochemical and Elemental Evaluation of Chrozophora plicata Leaves, Bannu, KPK, Pakistan

The main objective of our current research work is to evaluate and explore the phytochemistry of the methanolic crude extract of Chrozophora plicata leaves and elemental ions analysis by using flame photometer to determine the concentration of alkali and alkaline earth metals ions following wet digestion method. Chrozophora plicata was collected from district Bannu in the month of May 2016. Results obtained from the various activities showed that the Chrozophora plicata leaves methanolic crude extract possess much quantity of flavonoids and polyphenolic compounds which are good scavengers of the free radicals that cause oxidative stress and can be used against cancer, arthritis and diabetes. Important phytochemicals such as flavonoids, phenolic and alkaloids were present in the Chrozophora plicata leaves extract. Furthermore the biologically important ions results also suggest that the powder of the Chrozophora plicata leaves possess a significant composition of Li, Na, K, Ca, Ba ions. The present study results suggest as a whole that the Chrozophora plicata already used in Greek medicine SAFI can be used to design new drugs and natural antioxidants. Keywords: Chrozophora Plicata; Phytochemistry; Elemental ions analysis;

BLOOD FLOW IN ARISTOTLE

Modern readers view ancient theories of blood flow through the lens of circulation. Since the nineteenth century, scholarly work on the ancient understanding of the vascular system has run the gamut from attempting to prove that an ancient author had in fact, to some extent or another, pre-empted Harvey's discovery of the circulation of the blood or towards attempting, often with some empathetic embarrassment, to explain the failure on the part of an ancient author to notice something that seems so obvious to the modern eye. Thus C.R.S. Harris's 1973 book The Heart and Vascular System in Ancient Greek Medicine, which remains the standard on the topic, opens with a sentence in which he marvels at how the otherwise admirable ancient Greek physicians could have ‘failed entirely to arrive at any conception of the circulation of the blood’. This modern vantage point has had an unfortunate effect. In the case of Aristotle in particular, understanding of his cardiovascular system has been diminished by a tendency to define it in contradistinction to our own modern understanding of circulation. By deliberately uncoupling from the framework of modern physiology, this paper will offer a richer and more accurate picture of his views.

Tulsi (Ocimum sanctum) – a myriad medicinal plant, secrets behind the innumerable benefits

Tulsi ( Ocimum sanctum ) is an omnipresent, multipurpose plant and regarded as holy plant in Hindu religion finds place in front of every Hindu household. This herb is a member of Lamiaceae family, well known for its spiritual, religious and medicinal importance in India. Scientific investigations of traditional belief of medicinal properties of Tulsi have got impetus mostly in the later part of the 20th century. Characteristically, the plant imparts a pungent, bitter, hot, light and dry effect indicating the presence of curative value. It is extensively famous and has been used since centuries in Ayurvedic and Greek medicines owing to its beneficially diverse properties. The scientific fact behind these benefits owe to the presence of phytochemicals in leaves like flavonoids, phenol, terpenoids, alkaloids, eugenol and others which impart ability to overcome the infection by the target cells. The ability can be antimicrobial, pharmacological, any therapeutic, nutritional value or even leveraging of certain levels of phytochemicals thus bringing about the cellular protection. This review is an attempt to present brief information available on the religious values, studies on physiological aspects, antimicrobial properties, pharmacological application, therapeutic uses, phytochemical analysis, animal nutrition supplement and biotechnological studies comprising molecular marker usage, genome sequencing, bioinformatics and nanotechnological studies in Tulsi.

Transplantation in Ancient Greek Medicine.

Transplantation in Ancient Greek Medicine.

Ancient Medicine from Mesopotamia to Rome by Laura M. Zucconi

Reviewed by: Ancient Medicine from Mesopotamia to Rome by Laura M. Zucconi Jessica Wright Ancient Medicine from Mesopotamia to Rome. By Laura M. Zucconi. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2019. Pp. xxii + 432. Hardback, $110. ISBN 978-0-8028-6983-8. Ancient Medicine from Mesopotamia to Rome makes a significant intervention in the field of ancient medicine by decentering Greco-Roman sources and casting its geographical and cultural frame to focus on Mesopotamia, Egypt and the Levant. Through this approach, Zucconi is able to avoid the standard account of ancient medicine as naturalistic by definition, a perspective that is all but inevitable when taking the Hippocratic Corpus as a starting-point, as is usually the case. The book comprises nine richly documented chapters, each focusing on healing practices in specific regions or cultures of the ancient Near East and Mediterranean: Mesopotamia, pre-Ptolemaic Egypt, Canaan (including Phoenicians and Israelites), the Hittites, Classical and Hellenistic Greece, Ptolemaic Egypt, Italy (Etruscan and Roman), Second Temple Judaism and Persia. Each chapter, with the exception of Chapter 7, on Hellenistic medicine, follows an identical structure that encompasses general context (e.g. geography, politics), healing practices (e.g. diagnostic tools) and technical knowledge (physiology, anatomy, nosology). This approach reflects Zucconi’s explicit incorporation of a medical anthropological paradigm, which treats medicine as a cultural practice that can therefore be best understood within its social and cultural contexts. It also enables Zucconi to successfully demonstrate a central argument of the book, which is that each of the chapters “represents a local manifestation of a wider ancient medical culture” (1). That is, healing practices vary across the cultures and regions of the ancient Mediterranean, but all of them share core principles and ideas. One important implication of this argument is that Hippocratic medicine is just one local manifestation of a widespread and varied medical culture, and should no longer be treated as a kind of unique or miraculous predecessor to modern biomedicine. A distinctive strength of Ancient Medicine is that Zucconi offers a guide to archaeological and textual evidence for medicine in each of the cultures that it examines. Zucconi provides useful bibliographical information (for example, the different series of tablets that provide the basis for our understanding of Mesopotamian healing practices) and also critiques historical and existing practices of organizing and interpreting these sources. This both opens up a set of scholarly resources and establishes a basis for Zucconi to critically examine how expectations about what counts as ancient medicine have influenced the [End Page 255] organization and interpretation of sources. The critique centers especially around scholarly projection of the modern categories “magical” and “scientific” onto ancient texts. As Zucconi demonstrates repeatedly, ancient healing practices incorporated natural and supernatural elements. A clear example that she provides is the analysis of the “scientific” prescription of drugs through the lens of healing ritual: an oral rite, a physical rite, a charged substance. As Zucconi shows, drugs may operate as charged substances within the ancient context, but be interpreted in scientific terms as pharmacological substances by modern scholars. Zucconi amply demonstrates that distinctions between science, magic and religion, are unhelpful for the study of medicine in the ancient Near East. Zucconi’s reframing of ancient medical cultures is in part a strategy of names and renaming: Chapter 4, for example, details in large part with ancient Israelites and the Hebrew scriptures, but is titled “Canaanite Medicine,” and therefore both includes the Phoenicians and points the reader’s attention to all of the other Canaanite communities for which we have little evidence. Chapter 9, titled “Etruscan and Roman Medicine,” inevitably focuses on Latin texts, since Etruscan material is limited. The chapter on Ptolemaic Egypt, following closely after chapters on Classical Greek and Hellenistic medicine, deals similarly with the legacy of the Greek medical tradition, albeit within the Egyptian context. This difficulty in actually dislodging the centrality of Greece, Rome and Israel reflects the imbalance of extant sources. Yet, Zucconi’s strategy is successful in drawing the reader’s attention to the many, varied medical cultures that are obscured by the traditional lens. It also establishes groundwork for broadening the study of ancient medicine to include...

Other Galaxies: The Temenos Beyond the Screen

Other Galaxies:The Temenos Beyond the Screen Rebekah Rutkoff (bio) Healing takes place in the impasse / the sickness passes1 —Eleni Stecopoulos In mid-March of this year, I met Eleni Stecopoulos, a San Francisco-based poet, for breakfast in Tribeca. We had met briefly, years ago, and discovered a shared interest in the crossroads of ancient Greek medicine and poetry. Our March meeting was again short—Eleni told me about her new book-in-progress, "Dreaming in the Fault Zone: A Poetics of Healing," and we anticipated speaking more in late June. We both planned to attend the Temenos, an event in the Peloponnese dedicated to the presentation of Gregory Markopoulos's site-specific film Eniaios (c. 1947–1991).2 The Temenos, like Eleni's book, is grounded in the poetics of healing: Markopoulos devoted much of his life to probing the curative possibilities of cinema. I recall placing a bottle of hand sanitizer between Eleni and me on the cafe table, but the pandemic was still about a week away from functioning as the determining fact and force of everything, a life-organizing principle. By late April, Robert Beavers—a filmmaker, Markopoulos's long-time partner, and the Temenos organizer—informed attendees that the event was cancelled. "When I glance at the names of our guests and think of the variety and vitality that you represent as a group, it is with much regret. On the other hand, the current uncertainty makes the organization of the screenings for an international public nearly impossible. The priority is for us to be well and plan for next year," he wrote. [End Page 158] Filmmaker-Physician Every four years since 2004, spectators have gathered in a field in the Peloponnese to watch newly restored portions of Eniaios—the silent 80-hour film Markopoulos had fully edited but not yet printed when he died in 1992. Eniaios—ancient Greek for "unity" and "uniqueness"—is his magnum opus, designed exclusively for this remote location near his ancestral village, Lyssaraia. Composed of re-edited footage from most of his previous films and material from dozens of new films (works he'd edited in the 1970s but never printed), Eniaios is meant to supersede them all as an integrated epic work. Markopoulos spent the last decade of his life editing the nonnarrative film, using shots of Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. Markopoulos editing Eniaios c. 1989/1990. Photo by Robert Beavers. Courtesy Temenos Archive. [End Page 159] minuscule duration—many just one or a few frames in length, each separated from the next by lengths of black and clear leader. His method confounds conventions of filmic legibility and motion; Eniaios speaks in a dialect of rhythmic pulsation that is itself in dialogue with the shifting forms of a vast Arcadian sky. The unit of the single frame was the unplumbed essence of film for Markopoulos: "Who can dare to imagine what a single frame might contain? What future process could activate a single frame?"3 Born in Toledo, Ohio, to Greek parents in 1928, Markopoulos began to make ambitious narrative films in the late 1940s—psychosexual quests and romantic meditations sprung from ancient and poetic texts. He briefly studied film production at the University of Southern California (attending von Sternberg's lectures and watching Lang and Hitchcock on Hollywood sets), returned to Toledo, and traveled to Europe—all the while making films—before settling in New York in 1960 with an international reputation as an avant-garde filmmaker. He was a founding member of Jonas Mekas's New American Cinema Group and subsequent Film-Makers' Cooperative, a vivid voice via frequent essays in Film Culture and Film Comment, and a mentor to young filmmakers. But Markopoulos grew critical of the role of institutions and non-artists ("Art World Families," "the PhD set") in impinging on the truest interests of filmmakers and their films. He had met Beavers (b. 1949) in New York in 1965; in 1967, they left for Europe and spent the next decades there—until Markopoulos's death—as an itinerant, institution-shunning society-of-two. Markopoulos gradually removed his films from distribution, intent on controlling the conditions under...

Anadolu’daki Tıbbın Doğuşu, Dünyadaki İlk Tıp Okulu Olarak: Gevher Nesibe Tıp Medresesi ve Darüşşifası

Tıp tarihi çok eskilere dayanan bir bilimdir. Tarih boyunca hastalıklar varlığını göstermiş ve bu hastalıklara tedaviler aranmıştır. Bu tedavi yöntemleri yaşayan bütün uygarlıklarda farklılık göstermiştir. Mezopotamya, Mısır, Hitit gibi yerleşik hayata geçen ilk medeniyetlerde hastalık tedavilerinde bakış açısı büyü ve tanrılara duadan ileriye geçememiştir. Zamanla insanların çevreye olan duyarlılığının ve gözlem gücünün artmasıyla beraber tedavi konusunda daha gerçekçi ve bilimsel yaklaşımlar gözlenmiştir. Tıbba bakış açısı geliştikçe hastane ve tıp okulu ihtiyacı doğmuştur. Diğer medeniyetlere göre daha akılcı bir yol izleyerek tedavi arayışına giren Hint Medeniyetinde hastaların tedavisi için ilk hastane örnekleri yaptırılmıştır. Tıbbın bilimsel dönemi diye nitelendirilen M.Ö. 700 yılında Antik Yunan’da, şu anki Datça Yarımadasında, tarihteki ilk tıp okulu olan Knidos açılmıştır. M.Ö. 5. yüzyılda ise Hippokrates felsefeyi tıptan ayırarak, bilimsel bir yaklaşım ile eğitim veren Kos tıp okulunu kurmuştur. Orta Çağda Avrupa’da tıp konusunda bilimsellikten uzak bir dönem yaşanırken; Anadolu Medeniyetlerinde tıpta bilimsel bir dönem yaşanmıştır. Selçuklular zamanında hastane karşılığı olarak darüşşifalar inşa edilmiştir. Bu darüşşifaların en büyük özelliği, hastane hizmetinin yanı sıra tıp eğitimi vererek hekimler yetiştiriyor olmasıdır. Bu darüşşifalardan en önemlisi Anadolu Selçuklu döneminde 1206 yılında hizmete açılmış olan Gevher Nesibe Tıp Medresesi ve Darüşşifası’ dır. Bu darüşşifa hem tıp okulu hem de hastaneyi aynı bina içerisinde barındırıyor olmasından dolayı dünyada bir ilki teşkil etmektedir. Gevher Nesibe Tıp Medresesi ve Darüşşifası şu an Kayseri’de restore edilmiş son haliyle Büyükşehir Belediyesi tarafından müze olarak halkın hizmetine sunulmuştur

Greek (Unani) Aspect of Preventive & Social Medicine

There are number of systems of medicine prevailing in this world. The Greek (Unani) system of Medicine is one of them. The classic period of Greek Medicine was from 460-136 BC. The medieval period to which Greek medicine belong is 500-1500 AD. The golden period of Greek medicine is considered from 800 to 1300 AD (Park K, 2011) Greek medicine was reintroduced in 1351 AD by Arabs. Athens which was learning centre shifted to Alexandria as Arab - Persian medicine. It flourished in India under the patronage of Mughal Emperors, suffered a setback during the British rule but soon regained its momentum by endless efforts of Nizam of Hyderabad, Azizi family of Lucknow and Sharifi family of Delhi. At present Greek system of medicine has now been regarded and recognized as one of the Indian systems of medicine and forms an integral part of national healthcare delivery system (P. Siddiqui, 2009). How to cite this article:Ashraf SMS. Greek (Unani) Aspect of Preventive & Social Medicine. J Integ Comm Health 2019; 8(1): 13-20. DOI: https://doi.org/10.24321/2319.9113.201903

Therapy of the word and other psychotherapeutic approaches in Ancient Greek medicine.

One of the most distinctive aspects of contemporary psychiatry is its firm grounding in a neurological and biochemical framework for the interpretation of mental life and its disturbances. In the absence of any strong neurological understanding or systematic knowledge of active pharmaceutical substances, one might expect that early ancient medicine readily resorted to non-somatic approaches to healing mental suffering. Instead, what is usually labelled "therapy of the word" and other forms of what one may call psychotherapy emerge relatively late in Greek medicine, only in the first centuries of our era. This paper provides an overview and analysis of this development in ancient history of psychology, philosophy and medicine, covering a broad period of time from the fifth century BCE to the end of the late-antique period, the fifth century CE. The focus is on the very idea (or lack thereof) of the curability of mental disturbance, and on the particular branch of therapeutics which addresses the psychological and existential condition of the patient, rather than his or her physiological state.

Pulse and Gap in Greek Medicine History.

We read and enjoyed the paper entitled "Avicenna and Tremor of the Heart" by Ghahramani et al., which expressed the viewpoints of Avicenna, which was expressed unique subjects. But there are some contradictions with our findings which list as below: Dhanvantari was not a physician, but was of the Hindu gods; nadi in Sanskrit is derived from the word ney, referring to hollow paths. On the other hand, Nadi-ha is an equivalent of the pulse, but Nadi has been popular for several hundreds of years; Accordingly, there is no trace of a book written by Dhanvantari in the books translated from Hindi to Arabic during the translation movement, Rafus of Ephesus (70-110 A.D.) had the earliest writing about pulse, and Galen (129-210 A.D.) was not the first to provide a book concerning the pulse. Also, there was a severe breakdown in Greek medicine concerning the concept of the pulse, according to absence of pulse concept in Hippocrates works.

Greek Physicians in the Eyes of Roman Elite (from the Republic to the 1st Century AD)

<div class="text-wrap tlid-copy-target"><div class="result-shield-container tlid-copy-target"><p>W III w. p.n.e. greccy lekarze przywieźli medycynę naukową do Rzymu. Pojawienie się nowych praktyk terapeutycznych, będących dziedzictwem odmiennych ram mentalnych i kulturowych, wywołało podwójną reakcję w Rzymie. Z jednej strony kręgi filhellenistyczne promowały obecność lekarzy w mieście i domach arystokratycznych, z drugiej zaś część elity, która broniła grawitacji rzymskiej, potępiła zarówno nową medycynę, jak i lekarzy. Asymilacja medycyny greckiej w Rzymie została dokonana w I w. p.n.e., jednak postawa elity rzymskiej wobec lekarzy była nadal niejednoznaczna, ponieważ lekarze ci przychodzili zwykle ze Wschodu i praktykowali lekarstwo obce. Celem artykułu była analiza postawy elity rzymskiej wobec tych, którzy musieli zadbać o swoje zdrowie. Za pomocą źródeł literackich autorstwa m.in. Kato Starszego, Cycerona czy Pliniusza, oceniono, do jakiego stopnia ci lekarze, którzy oddziaływali na życie arystokracji, byli postrzegani jako <em>carnifici</em>, którzy zabijali, lub <em>amici</em>, którzy uzdrawiali.</p></div></div>

Drugs for mental illnesses in ancient greek medicine.

Drugs with psychedelic, hypnotic, narcotic, analgesic, suppressive, euphoric and stimulating effects were used in various ways during the ancient times. We can classify drug use in ancient times into two main categories. On the one hand, ancient physicians prescribed drugs based on their pharmaceutical-therapeutic actions. On the other hand, people not pertaining to medicine and not relating to its accurate implementation often abused drugs to achieve an euphoric state of mind, either for personal gratification or as an indispensable element of religion and mythology. Ancient Greek medical literature contains ample prescriptions and recipes indicating that plants were the essential components of drugs. Pedanius Dioscorides dedicated his lifetime's work to the synthesis of ancient drugs. One can find a plethora of information concerning the production methods and the plants used in drugs for the treatment of psychiatric diseases. These were herbs like black and white hellebore, mandrake, hyoscyamus (henbane), Papaver somniferum (also known as opium poppy), Strychnos, Frankincense-tree and dorycnium. The preparation of narcotics included the addition of other elements, mainly wine, to the opus of plants or to their extracts. Drugs were produced via methods of dehumidification/desiccation, grinding, squeezing or boiling of the plants' roots with a formation of a juice, oil or mush extract. In addition, drugs could also be inhaled if burnt. Many physicians of antiquity, such as Hippocrates, Galen, Ctesias and Aretaeus of Cappadocia, all refer to many of these aforementioned drugs analyzing the different symptoms which they could address, and the risks accompanying their use. Physicians of antiquity used drugs for the treatment of somatic, as well as psychiatric disorders. Most of these drugs affected the central nervous system. Taking advantage of their analgesic properties, physicians used them for the management of severe and chronic painful conditions. The hypnotic effects of some drugs were desirable in order to be used as anesthetics for surgical operations and cauterization. Drug use was also established in the initial treatment of epilepsy and seizures, regardless of their cause. Public rituals and mythology were the two main contexts in which drug use flourished, outside the realms of medicine. The psychotropic and especially the hallucinatory effects of drugs caused the person under their influence to lose control, rendering him incapable of governing his actions and thoughts. These consciousness-altering medications were frequently the central focus of mythology. In this case, one would dictate and give orders to another person, which under any other circumstances would not be carried out. This led to the formation of the concept of the magic potion. Theophrastus frequently referred to magic potions.