Disease is as old as humanity itself, as shown by the lesions found by paleontologists in the skeletal remains of individuals who lived in the earliest times of human history. Faced with pain or organic damage caused by water, cold, wind, poisonous plants, wild animals or microorganisms, human beings struggled to remedy or avoid them with their own means or with the help of others.
In this way, medicine began with concern over a splinter, a sting or a parasite, from which human beings deduced that by discovering the cause and removing it, they could cure the condition. This gave rise to the oldest concept of the etiology of diseases, and instinctive medicine emerged.
According to this view, in every disease it is possible to discover the external or immediate cause that produces it. From this, early human beings concluded that other illnesses, whose etiology they did not know, also came from outside, even when their senses did not allow them to discover the mechanism of penetration.
Like lightning or an arrow, a tumor or a pain must also have been caused by an external, invisible and mysterious force, yet one capable of causing illness or death. By searching for the etiology of diseases in the Sun, the stars, thunder, seawater and other natural elements, human beings discovered the therapeutic effect of natural agents such as sunlight, cold, heat and water.
From this empirical medicine was born the magical conception of disease. Since disease was believed to be caused by supernatural forces, it was necessary to fight against harmful influences, against the demons that populated the environment in which prehistoric human beings lived.
Every object and every phenomenon was full of wandering souls, nocturnal spirits, traces, shadows and elves. It was necessary to remove the sick person from these influences. From this came the origin of masks and rites such as changing the name of the patient or surrounding them with a symbolic chain that would guarantee their inviolability.
Thus, the medicine man became an expeller of demons, and the magician-physician and magical medicine emerged. The magician, by observing the stars or the entrails of animals, predicted the future, and by using masks, heads or animal skins, was able to frighten demons. His practices were almost always accompanied by loud noises, dances, exorcisms and incense burning.
In this atmosphere of mysticism arose the idea that the dead and the living could exert harmful effects on certain individuals, a superstition known as the evil eye, which still persists today. Defense against the evil eye was one of the therapeutic foundations of primitive peoples, who used countless objects as amulets for that purpose.
Through the observation of animals, the magician-physician acquired some therapeutic notions. He saw that animals licked their wounds, removed splinters with their nails and parasites with their claws, and he imitated their procedures, creating instruments to carry out such practices.
Over time, in order to guarantee the secrecy of their profession, the magician-physicians separated themselves from the rest of the population and formed a distinct caste. This caste surrounded its practices with mystery and used clothing that made its members appear as superior men.
In this way, priestly medicine emerged, guaranteeing the transmission of empirical knowledge and of the experience resulting from the use of diets, baths and plants as therapeutic means.
Mesopotamian Medicine
Four thousand years B.C., Mesopotamian medicine began to flourish, as a precursor of Assyrian-Babylonian medicine. It is the oldest medicine known so far and was characterized by the magical concept of the etiology of diseases.
The Sumerians, expert astrologers, tried to establish relationships between natural phenomena, the stars, the seasons and the origin and manifestations of diseases. Thus began the astrological conception of medicine.
In the library of Ashurbanipal in Nineveh, countless clay tablets have been found containing descriptions of the remedies used by magician-physicians, as well as a presumed book of obstetrics.
Around the year 2000 B.C., Babylonian and Assyrian civilization flourished. In this civilization, medicine was practiced by a priestly caste of professionals. The Code of Hammurabi, dating from around 1900 B.C., contains provisions on the practice of medicine and on the criminal and civil responsibility of the physician, showing that the medical profession was regulated by law.
Later, a caste of surgeons and lay physicians was formed, whose activities also had to be governed by codified provisions.
Throughout the centuries of its development, Mesopotamian medicine enriched medicinal therapeutics, valued natural phenomena, presented the first concepts of social medicine and codified the practice of medicine.
