Ancient Greek and Roman Medicine

Ancient Greek literature begins with a plague sent by the god Apollo to punish the Greeks besieging the city of Troy. Homer's description of the plague is deeply interesting, not least because it includes a number of details of the spread of a plague that are accurate, despite its reliance ultimately upon a divine source. Several hundred years later, the person usually identified as the first physician, Hippocrates of Cos (c. 460–c. 370 BC), was taking pains to distance himself and his work from the world of "conjurers, quacks, and charlatans." This lesson explores the connections between religion and medicine from the 12th to the 5th century BC as well as the emergence of the professional physician.