Because dissection of human cadavers was still forbidden in Rome where Galen practised, much of his anatomical work involved animals such as pigs and the Barbary macaque ape. He considered anatomy essential to understanding physiology, which in turn offered access to the comprehension of pathology. 129–216 AD), a prominent Greco-Roman physician and philosopher who pursued anatomical knowledge through principles of experimentation and reasoning. Ī search for “hidden causes” of disease was resumed during the second century by Galen of Pergamon (c. A further example which illustrates this can be found in the Edwin Smith papyrus, which depicts the use of a magic charm and ostrich egg in treating a comminuted skull fracture. Medicine and religion were closely intertwined, and a strict natural-supernatural dichotomy did not exist while traumatic injuries or noxious substances could impede the flow within mtw-vessels and disrupt maat, it was believed that gods could do the same as a form of divine punishment. A separate religious concept of “ maat” (balance, order, justice) guided their explanation for illness, whereby health required a balance of flow within the mtw-vessels, just like how their country depended on the regularity of the Nile flooding for crop irrigation. The vessels were thought of as canals in which various substances flowed and opened to the external environment through natural bodily orifices. According to the Ebers papyrus, ancient Egyptians theorized that 22 vessels (also known as “ mtw”) formed the basis of human physiology.
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