MEDICINE, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

WHICH ONE WAS PRACTISED  FIRST IN  HUMAN  HISTORY?

“Medicine is an art, and attend to the nature and constitution of the patient and has principles of action and reason in each case.”    - Plato (427 – 347 BC)

Let’s first look at the dictionary definitions of these terms:

Medicine is defined as the arts and science of the practice of prevention, diagnosis and treatments of diseases.

Science is defined as the knowledge that is obtained with intellectual and practical activities, encompassing the systemic study of the structure of the physical and natural world through observations and science-based experimentations.

Technology is defined as the application of the scientific knowledge for invention of tools and instruments for practical and beneficial use for people and societies.

As we clearly see from these definitions - medicine, science and technology are intertwined so much so that one could easily assume that one couldn’t exist without the other. However, when we look back at human history, we see that our ancient hunter – gatherer ancestors used faith and magic based healing practices for their sick. They also used primitive and common-sense technological tools made of wood and stone for hunting and gathering purposes, without knowing anything about science and technology.

But over time, after developing more experience, intellectual capacity and thinking abilities, it enabled them to refine their tool making skills and then create their own, more advanced technological evolution by going through the stone age, bronze age and iron age, still without knowing anything about the science behind their technological success. 

It is interesting to note that forms of rudimentary tools are used by non-human species, like some monkeys or birds without having any scientific knowledge behind their behaviors. Primates have been known to pick and choose heavy and round rocks to use to crack open hard nuts. Some birds use rocks to break open snail shells or drop bones from higher altitude to crack open upon impact so they can eat the bone marrow. 

It appears that faith based healing practices and using primitive technology to make hunting and gathering tools that do not require high level of intelligence came first in human history. But having a high level of intelligence is a must for the more difficult, complex and sophisticated sciences, scientific thinking and scientific achievements.  Therefore, science and scientific discoveries by humans were accomplished much later in human history.

Being a doctor, I would like to elaborate more on the evolution of scientific medicine. There is no doubt that in ancient human history, Babylonians and ancient Egyptians established more advanced civilizations of their time, with much knowledge about the human body and anatomy, about mathematics and geometry, and even astronomy. But they had not progressed beyond mystic and religious explanations of natural events, and the illnesses they faced. They considered these dangerous events as punishments from gods for their sins and mistakes they committed.

Yet, the ancient Greeks who were deeply influenced by them and drew deeply on their civilization, their knowledge of math and geometry, astronomy, the human body and anatomy, went even further. They advanced these acquired knowledge even further with principles of scientific thinking.

So, the credit for the transition of explaining natural events and diseases from myths, religious beliefs, assumptions, to scientific thinking goes to ancient Greeks, especially in the field of medicine. Hippocrates (400 – 370 BC) from the island of Cos, who is considered the father of medicine, and his followers strongly believed that everything in nature, including diseases occur because of a natural and/or biological cause. It has nothing to do whatsoever with anger or punishments of gods. According to them, the primary task of a healer is to find the cause of the disease, and to try to eliminate the cause to cure the disease. 

Hippocrates and his followers, besides this revolutionary scientific thinking, lay out the moral and ethical principles and the arts of the practice of medicine, which still resonate in modern medical practice. This revolutionary thinking opened the door wide open for the development, advancement and rapid changes in the practice of scientific medicine.

This is why it’s an eternal tradition in medicine that all doctors take the “Hippocratic Oath” upon graduation from the medical school, so they can remain loyal to the moral and ethical principles of practice of medicine.