The Between Eastern And Western Medicine

Many different forms of medicine are currently practiced in the world. In fact, as our text states, “in all cultures, some people have become recognized as having special abilities to treat and diagnose health problems.” (Miller 107) Without argument, phytomedicinal and supernatural healers are two forms of medical treatment that have been around for longer than any other, regardless of culture. It has been estimated that shamanism has been practiced for over ten thousand years (Tyson 3). Native American and Celtic healers are often known as shamans.

Humanity’s approach to medicine, illness, and disease have been changing over time. Early use of medicine was discovered in Ancient Egypt, Babylonia, India, China, Greece, and Rome. Prehistoric medicine incorporated plants, animal parts, and minerals as a source of medicine. In most cases, these materials were used as magical substances by priests and shamans. Some spiritual systems include animism, spiritualism, shamanism, and divination.

Medieval medicine was rooted in Ancient Greek practices. In 65 A.D., a Greek writer, Discorides, wrote a book, Material Medica. The book is about medical use of over five-hundred different plants. The book is translated into Hebrew and Arabic. Doctors in the Early Modern Era knew very little, and they used plants as the most important care and/or treatment. Due to unsanitary places and tools, many different diseases spread around Europe. Life was challenging during the Early Modern Era because of many diseases(Alchin). During the 1500s- 1600s, diseases overtook many people because doctors knew little, medicine was unknown, and there were many causes.

In our world today, many of our medicine and medical treatments have been brought down from generation to generation, starting from cultures from several centruies ago, being passed down to our hospitals today. Some of our practices started from Ancient Rome.The understanding of medicine from the Ancient Romans evolved from the many “medical methods of the Greeks, the Etruscans, the Egyptians, the Persians, and other conquered peoples (Crystallinks, “Medicine and surgery”, Source 1).” They mainly received imports of medicine from other cultures that they adopted from. Ancient Roman’s based their medical practices on science along with their religious beliefs. This resulted in a system of effective treatments and transcendental practices.

Medicine has come a long way from the Greek period. Theories composed of the four elements were used to explain the sick phenomenon that happens to our bodies. Many of the those theories are not relevant as of now. Medicine and remedies has begun with the Earth, providing all types of compounds and

Though the Greeks’ medicinal practices now seem highly superstitious and primitive, their desire and effort put towards discovering the cause of disease and working toward curing or preventing disease are worthy of respect and admiration. With a great amount of observance and, what they believed to be, a logical line of thinking, the Greeks offered those working in medicine an explanation of why diseases occurred, the effects these diseases had, how they could be countered, and even the regions they were most likely to claim victims. During the time the Hippocratic corpus was written, the Greeks did not believe there was anything divine about disease; no gods threw waves of illness at their people in fits of anger or in punishment like many cultures before and after believed. The seasons, water, air, and regions were the reason for disease and directly affected which illnesses were most common and the probability of catching a disease. This line of thinking

Healing has been around a long time. You may think that medicine has changed a lot over the years, and it has for the better. But that does not mean that some of the practices have stayed around. prayer, accupuncture, diet, etc. have all stayed around, but have changed slightly.

In ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome, and the Arabic empire, physicians usually coded drugs under a sacred animal or deity like ‘skin of the yellow serpent’ and ‘eye of the sun’. Up until late 4th century A.D., pharmacists and physicians from the previously stated places relied on the usage of magic, alchemy, and metaphysical properties along with the actual drug to cure diseases. Men plagued by disease were thought to have been smite by the gods. It is unclear whether or not early medicine actually worked to cure those diseases.

The Classical Age of Greece, not only underwent a remarkable cultural change, but it also marked a great turning point of clinical medicine, where the perception of the supernatural as a healing power and medicine was divorced. This is supported by Lambert as he addresses that “The transition from a priestly to lay a profession of medicine was aided by a group of Greek thinkers and students of human life and death and the illness of man and the conditions of their occurrence.” Amongst those great thinkers was Hippocrates, one of Greece’s most influential scientist and physician. Hippocrates, born in Cos, was destined to a medical practice path for “he was the son of Herakleides and belonged to a family of physicians who claimed their ancestry from Asclepius, the god of medicine.” Hippocrates opposed the foundation of medicine of ancient Greece. Hippocrates strongly believed that there should be a separation between all supernatural force and disease. He dismissed the religious and magical approach and confided towards a logical interpretation for illness and disease. He profoundly observed diseases in detail and accordingly focused in diagnosis more rather than treatment. It was Hippocrates that made the leap

The complex structure and foreign nature of Tibetan medicine makes it difficult to relate its practices to Western medicine, making it difficult to determine the clinical efficacy of Eastern medical practice. Several clinical analysis studies have recently been performed in order to determine the efficacy of the “holistic” practices of Eastern cultures. Whether the studies show Eastern or Western practices to be more effective, I believe that the most effective treatment should be a combination of both practices.

While Hippocratic rationalists were advocates for rational, physical factors as the etiological agent of disease, their scope of influence and persuasion was another matter. “Temple medicine, after all, not only continued to flourish, but actually expanded, after the fifth century B.C.” (p. 57). There is clearly a tension in the culture between supernatural, magical sources of healing, and the rationality derived from Hippocrates and his followers.

The bio-medical model of ill health has been at the forefront of western medicine since the end of the eighteenth century and grew stronger with the progress in modern science. This model underpinned the medical training of doctors. Traditionally medicine had relied on folk remedies passed down from generations and ill health was surrounded in superstition and religious lore with sin and evil spirits as the culprit and root of ill health. The emergence of scientific thinking questioned the traditional religious view of the world and is linked to the progress in medical practice and the rise of the biomedical model. Social and historical events and circumstances were an important factor in its development as explanations about disease

Modern Western medicine traces its roots to the 5th century BCE, when the Greek physician Hippocrates (460-377) first attributed illness to physical causes, distinguished medical practice from priestly ministrations, and taught diagnosis by observation and treatment by fostering or restoring natural processes. Hippocrates and his disciples and successors, notably Galen (CE 130–201), produced a large and diverse body of medical writings in Greek. Many of the anatomic, pathologic, and therapeutic terms found in those writings remain in use today, some with little or no change in

As the centuries unrolled and new civilizations appeared, cultural, artistic, and medical developments shifted toward the new centers of power. A reversal of the traditional search for botanical drugs occurred in Greece in the fourth century BC, when Hippocrates (estimated dates, 460-377 BC), the "Father of Medicine," became interested in inorganic salts as medications.

Although populations in ancient societies suffered attacks, invasions, starvation, and persecution, there was a more efficient killer that exterminated countless people. The most dreaded killers in the ancient world were disease, infections and epidemics. In many major wars the main thing was not gunfire, or assault, but the easily spread diseases that rapidly wiped out whole divisions of soldiers. Until the time of Hippocrates, in the struggle between life and death, it was, more often than not, death that prevailed when a disease was involved. In the modern world, although illness is still a concern, advances in thought and technique have led to the highest birth rates in recorded history. No longer is a fever a cause for distress; a quick trip to the store and a few days of rest is the current cure. An infection considered easily treatable today could have meant disablement, even death to an ancient Greek citizen.