Wellness by iris efthymiou - egleton

Author:iris efthymiou - egleton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-07-11T16:00:00+00:00

Second Part of the Journey: A Mediterranean Cruise

Egypt and Greece may not belong to the same continent as do the three countries studied in the first chapter. But they do communicate through the Mediterranean Sea, so instead of giving this chapter the clumsy, kind of unfortunate title Eurafrica, I preferred the lovely Mediterranean Sea whose bordering countries can enjoy its world-famous and very beneficial diet. Besides, I could not leave the Mediterranean Sea out of a book talking about wellness. Historically, the Greeks have been a marine people with unprecedented love for the sea and shipping. Besides, we will see later in our study that doctors, scientists and other renowned personalities from both countries traveled around to collect as much information as possible and bring it back to their people and bring about a much-needed development in various sectors useful in everyday life, medicine being no exception.

In both these ancient civilizations, there was the belief that disease was a divine curse or a form of punishment for their sins. And in both cases, this way of thinking started to fade away gradually until it completely disappeared and pure logic prevailed. Medical theory and practice gained more and more ground. At first, people used to be based mostly on wishful thinking and lots and lots of prayer. Retrograde as it may seem, isn’t it true that people still pray – often silently – when they are sick or even when they feel weak in some way? I believe so. Now that we are at it, I would like to add that, apart from presenting many encyclopedic pieces of information, this study also offers you a great amount of food for thought and an organized platform for comparing the past with the present.

Traditional African medicine (TAM) is the medical system that features the most extensive use of indigenous herbalism. As expected, in TAM, the supernatural is believed to be the cause of illness. TAM has divination as a diagnostic tool and its treatment includes the ritualized use of a wide variety of plant- and animal-derived agents. Herbs are often used as part of a treatment in which physical characteristics, such as aroma, shape and color, and rituals, such as incantation, are more important than the herbs’ pharmacological effects. Poisonous species are rarely used for healing, since it is not possible for them to be accurately measured.

Back to our two beloved and world-changing ancient civilizations. Not all Ancient Greek and Egyptian medicine was based on wishful thinking; much of it was the result of experimentation and observation, and physical means supplemented the magical ones. Apart from spiritual healing and herbal medicine, Ancient Egyptians practiced massage and made extensive use of therapeutic herbs and foods, but surgery was only rarely part of their treatments. According to Herodotus, who traveled several times in Egypt, there was a high degree of specialization among physicians.

The Egyptians were advanced medical practitioners for their time. They were masters of human anatomy and healing mostly due to the extensive mummification ceremonies.

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