ADVANCEMENT OF MEDICINE

ADVANCEMENT OF MEDICINE Aided by Belief in Monotheism J UST as diseases have afflicted man in every age, so has the science of medicine always existed in one form or the other. In ancient times, however, the science of medicine never reached the heights of progress that it did in the Islamic era and also latterly, in modern times. It is believed that the beginning of the science of medicine—a beginning to be reckoned with—was made in ancient Greece. The two very great physicians who were born in ancient Greece were Hippocrates and Galen. However, very little is known about their lives. The historians of later times have estimated that Hippocrates was probably born in c. 460 BC and died in c. 375 BC. Some historians, on the other hand, even have doubts about his being a historical figure. It has also been questioned whether the books on philosophy and medicine supposedly written by him were not actually written by someone else and later attributed to him. Galen is considered the second most important philosopher and physician of this period of antiquity. He was born probably in AD 129 and died in AD 199. Galen had to face stiff opposition in Rome, and most of his writings were destroyed. The remainder would also have been lost to posterity had the Arabs not collected them in the 9th century and translated them into Arabic. These Arabic translations were later to reach Europe in the 11th century, where they were translated from Arabic into Latin. The Encyclopaedia Britannica concludes its article on Galen thus: “Little is known of Galen’s final years.” (7/850) It is a fact that ancient Greece produced some very fine brains of high intellectual calibre in this field. But the respective fates of Galen and Hippocrates show that the atmosphere in ancient Greece was conducive neither to the rise of such people to their due eminence, nor to the growth of medicine as a science. Different kinds of superstitious beliefs were an obstruction in the path of free enquiry, for instance, the attribution of diseases to mysterious powers, and the sanctification of many things, such as plants which had healing properties. The science of medicine came into being in ancient Greece about 200 years before the Christian era and continued for another two centuries. In this way, the whole period extended over about four or five hundred years. This science did not see any subsequent advance in Greece itself.