1. What links these images?

2. Lesson Objectives
To identify the key approaches to cause and cure of disease in the Ancient World
To explain the ‘dual approach’ to medicine
To evaluate the significance of the ancient ideas to the development of medical theories

3. Prehistoric Trepanning
If illness obvious, (broken bone) = natural approach
If illness not obvious, (headache) = supernatural approach (evil spirits)

4. Ancient Egypt The Natural Theory of disease, based on the River Nile
However, doctors were also priests and magicians so linked to supernatural
= Dual Approach

5. Ancient Greece Cult of Asclepius Asclepius = God of Medicine
Supernatural approach

6. Ancient Greece The Theory of the 4 Humours Hippocrates
Humours = liquids in the body
Illness is caused when liquids are out of balance, (too much or too little)
First ever totally natural theory

7. Ancient Rome
Romans conquered the Greeks and kept some of their ideas including Cult of Asklepios
Galen adapted Theory of 4 Humours and developed the ‘Theory of Opposites’
Balance the humour with the opposite reaction

8. Why were the ideas of the Ancient Greeks and Ancient Romans so important?