Bizarre Practices in Medicine Throughout History
Medical practice is not a modern phenomenon. Since prehistoric times, humans have sought to treat illness and injury through methods such as skull trepanation—the surgical drilling of the skull—and the use of herbal remedies. While today’s medicine is grounded in scientific evidence and technological advancement, its origins are deeply rooted in the ancient world, where observation, belief systems, and empirical experimentation laid the groundwork for what would become the foundations of modern medical science. The earliest recorded medical texts come from Mesopotamia, where clay tablets dating back to the third millennium BCE documented symptoms, diagnoses, and treatments. Ancient Egyptian medicine soon followed, known for its relatively advanced knowledge of surgery and pharmacology, as preserved in documents like the Ebers and Edwin Smith Papyri. Greek medicine, developed by figures such as Hippocrates and Galen, introduced the first formal systems of medical ethics and clinical observation. These works were later translated and expanded upon during the Golden Age of Arabo-Muslim medicine, which produced scholars such as Avicenna (Ibn Sina), Al-Razi, and Ibn al-Nafis, whose texts remained central in both the Islamic world and Europe for centuries.
