Welcome to You Ask Andy

DeLinda Morris, age 11, of Tulsa, Okla., for her question:

WHO WAS THE FIRST DOCTOR?

Today universities and medical schools turn out lots of doctors. Many teachers and scientists obtain Doctor of Philosophy degrees. Schools of higher learning also award doctors' degrees to clergymen, lawyers, mathematicians, dentists and other professional men. Best known of all doctor degrees, perhaps, is the M.D.  the Doctor of Medicine.

We don't know who the world's first medical doctor was, but we know he lived in prehistoric times. People then believed that angry gods caused diseases, and early day physicians were called on to pacify the gods by driving out the evil spirits.First known surgical treatment was called trephining. The operation was first performed 10,000 years ago, and it involved cutting a hole in a patient's skull to release the spirits responsible for epilepsy, headaches or mental illness.

By about 3000 B.C., the Egyptians had made many advances on the medical front. The world's first true physician known by name lived about 2700 B.C. and was called Egyptian Imhotep. He was later worshiped as the god of healing.

Ancient Hebrews developed preventitive medicine techniques about 1200 B.C. They isolated persons with contagious diseases and also prohibited the contamination of public wells.

The ancient Chinese and Indians also made medical progress in the early days of civilization. The Chinese developed the practice of acupuncture while the Indians perfected operations including plastic surgery and amputations.

The great Greek physician Hippocrates in about 400 B.C. became the first physician known to consider medicine as a science and art separate from the practice of religion.

The Romans in 300 B.C., learning a great deal from the Egyptians and Greeks, did much to improve public health. They developed the aqueduct which provided fresh water and also built an excellent sewerage system in Rome.

During the Middle Ages, from about 400 A.D. until 1500, medical contributions came from the Moslem empire. A Persian born physician named Rhazes wrote the first accurate description of many diseases and an Arab physician named Avicenna produced a medical encyclopedia called "Canon of Medicine.''

A new scientific spirit developed during the Renaissance with fine contributions from doctors in Italy, France and Switzerland.

An English physician named William Harvey in the early 1600s learned how blood circulates through the body. A Dutch scientist named Anton van Leeuwenhoek in the mid 1600s came up with the idea of the microscope. And by the early 1700s, doctors found a way to inoculate people and provide them with protection against smallpox. The golden age of medicine continued to blossom as doctors developed antiseptics, the use of X rays and thousands of other medical wonders.

 

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