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The history of medicine is both a study of medicine throughout history as well as a multidisciplinary field of study that seeks to explore and understand medical practices, both past and present, throughout human societies.

The history of medicine is the study and documentation of the evolution of medical treatments, practices, and knowledge over time. Medical historians often draw from other humanities fields of study including economics, health sciences, sociology, and politics to better understand the institutions, practices, people, professions, and social systems that have shaped medicine. When a period which predates or lacks written sources regarding medicine, information is instead drawn from archaeological sources. Early medical traditions include those of Babylon, Egypt, China and India. Prior to the 19th century, humorism (also known as humoralism) was thought to explain the cause of disease but it was gradually replaced by the germ theory of disease, leading to effective treatments and even cures for many infectious diseases. Public health measures were developed especially in the 19th century as the rapid growth of cities required systematic sanitary measures. Advanced research centers opened in the early 20th century, often connected with major hospitals. These advancements, along with developments in chemistry, genetics, and radiography led to modern medicine. Medicine was heavily professionalized in the 20th century, and new careers opened to women as nurses (from the 1870s) and as physicians (especially after 1970).

Prehistoric medicine is a field of study focused on understanding the use of medicinal plants, healing practices, illnesses, and wellness of humans before written records existed. Although styled prehistoric "medicine", prehistoric healthcare practices were vastly different from what we understand medicine to be in the present era and more accurately refers to studies and exploration of early healing practices. The overlap of medicine as both a root to healing the body as well as the spiritual throughout prehistoric periods highlights the multiple purposes that healing practices and plants could potentially have.

Ancient medicine covers a similar period of time and presented a range of similar healing theories from across the world connecting nature, religion, and humans within ideas of circulating fluids and energy.

According to him, "the practice of medicine is so specialized among them that each physician is a healer of one disease and no more." Although Egyptian medicine, to a considerable extent, dealt with the supernatural, it eventually developed a practical use in the fields of anatomy, public health, and clinical diagnostics.

Traditional Chinese medicine that is based on the use of herbal medicine, acupuncture, massage and other forms of therapy has been practiced in China for thousands of years.

In preserving medical practices from antiquity, Byzantine medicine influenced Islamic medicine as well as fostering the Western rebirth of medicine during the Renaissance.

Persian polymath Avicenna has been called the "father of medicine" and wrote The Canon of Medicine which became a standard medical text in medieval European universities, considered one of the most famous books in the history of medicine. The Canon of Medicine presents an overview of medicine in the medieval Islamic world, which had been influenced by earlier traditions including Greco-Roman medicine, Al-Rāzi was one of the first to question the Greek theory of humorism, which nevertheless remained influential in medieval Western and Islamic medicine.

Unani medicine is in some respects close to Ayurveda and to Early Modern European medicine.

Along with Koch's bacteriologists, Pasteur's group—which preferred the term microbiology—led medicine into the new era of "scientific medicine" upon bacteriology and germ theory.

The Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese was the forerunner of the School of Medicine of the University of Hong Kong, which started in 1911.

The rise of personalised medicine in the 21st century has generated the possibility to develop diagnosis and treatments based on the individual characteristics of a person, rather than through generic practices that defined 20th century medicine.

Quick Facts

• The history of medicine is the study and documentation of the evolution of medical treatments, practices, and knowledge over time.
• Persian polymath Avicenna has been called the "father of medicine" and wrote The Canon of Medicine which became a standard medical text in medieval European universities, considered one of the most famous books in the history of medicine.
• In preserving medical practices from antiquity, Byzantine medicine influenced Islamic medicine as well as fostering the Western rebirth of medicine during the Renaissance.
• Medicine was heavily professionalized in the 20th century, and new careers opened to women as nurses (from the 1870s) and as physicians (especially after 1970).
• Although styled prehistoric "medicine", prehistoric healthcare practices were vastly different from what we understand medicine to be in the present era and more accurately refers to studies and exploration of early healing practices.

Source material: Wikipedia - "History of medicine". Adapted and summarized for DiscoverScroll. Original contributors are credited through the linked Wikipedia article. Read original on Wikipedia. CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes were made from the original.