Ancient Greece

Question 1

How did the Greeks become rich?

Answer 1

-Like the Egyptians, Greeks became rich from farming and trade with slaves/the poor to work the fields. This allowed the wealthy to spend time becoming educated and fund education.

Question 2

Who was Asclepius?

Answer 2

-A Greek/Roman God of healing.

Question 3

What are the Four Humours?

Answer 3

-Blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile.

Question 4

Who came up with the theory of the four humours?

Answer 4

-Hippocrates.

Question 5

What were the four humours linked to?

Answer 5

-The four elements and the four seasons.

Question 6

What must the humours be in order to be healthy?

Answer 6

-Balanced.

Question 7

What were treatments based on?

Answer 7

-Balancing the four humours.

Question 8

What is Hippocrates acknowledged as?

Answer 8

-The father of modern medicine.

Question 9

What was the Hippocratic Corpus?

Answer 9

-A collection of medical books, come written by Hippocrates or his followers.

Question 10

What was the Hippocratic Oath?

Answer 10

-An Oath created to give confidence in doctors.

Question 11

What did Hippocrates encourage doctors to do?

Answer 11

-To treat illnesses using natural methods.

Question 12

What else did Hippocrates come up with?

Answer 12

-The “clinical method of observation” which doctors still use today. This involves studying a patient’s symptoms to diagnose their illness and treating them accordingly.

Question 13

What were the temples called which people went to stay when they became ill?

Answer 13

-Asclepions.

Question 14

What did visitors do at Asclepions?

Answer 14

-Bathed and relaxed, prayed to Asclepios and sleep in a building called an abaton.

Question 15

What was an abaton?

Answer 15

-A building where ill people went to go and sleep. They were buildings with a roof but no walls.

Question 16

What happened to the visitors in their sleep when they went to a abaton?

Answer 16

-Whilst sleeping a God came to them in a dream and cured them of their illness.

Question 17

What did priests do to cure diseases?

Answer 17

-“Ward Rounds”, performing rituals which involved placing snakes on the patients to cure them of their illnesses.

Question 18

Where were success stories recorded?

Answer 18

-Success stories were recorded in inscriptions on the walls of the Asclepions.

Question 19

What were Asclepius’ daughters called and what were their powers?

Answer 19

-Hygeia and Panacea, who were also involved in healing, just like their father who was the God of healing.

Question 20

What did Ancient Greeks do to prevent spread of disease?

Answer 20

-Healthy Living.

Question 21

What did Ancient Greeks believe you had to do to stay healthy?

Answer 21

• They needed to do exercise to be healthy.
• Hygiene was also important, with emphasis placed on washing.
• Diet was also thought to be important. Many Ancient Greeks followed a diet that changed with the seasons - eating lots in winter, but drinking little - while in the summer drinking more and eating less.

Question 22

Which city in Ancient Greece was dissection permitted?

Answer 22

-Alexandria.

Question 23

What did Alexandria become famous for?

Answer 23

-Training medics and surgeons.

Question 24

What did Erasistratus do?

Answer 24

-He identified the differences between arteries, veins and nerves and saw that nerves were not hollow and so couldn’t be vessels for fluid.

Question 25

When did the Greeks used surgery as a treatment?

Answer 25

-As a last resort - most treatments were performed outside the body.

Question 26

What did surgeons develop in the Ancient Greek era?

Answer 26

-Good techniques for setting broken bones and in extreme cases, would amputate. A range of surgical equipment was developed, made from iron, steel and brass.

Question 27

What were the new surgical instruments developed by surgeons the Ancient Greek era made from?

Answer 27

-Iron, Steel and Brass.

Question 28

What factors improved medical understanding in the Ancient Greek period?

Answer 28

-Attitudes - Enquiring - Greek doctors encourages especially by Hippocrates to investigate for themselves in order to develop their understanding. Led to enquiry + debate between doctors. Would carefully record symptoms that their patients had + the treatments that were used to overcome them - enabled refinements to be made to treatments for younger doctors to learn from the more experienced ones.
-Attitudes - Religion - helped to improve public health through the building of Asclepia. By 200 BC Asclepia built in every Greek town + led to people visiting them for respite and to be treated. Equipped with temples where people would pray, but also doctors there would offer herbal remedies and undertake simple surgery. Religion was helpful in this way as it provided the means by which people could improve their health through better diet exercise as well as a chance to rest.
Government - invest in knowledge + education, especially in the example of Alexandria - founded by Alexander the Great following his conquest of Egypt. Allowed doctors to receive knowledge and hence improve their understanding of illness by reading the works of others. + Dissection was permitted here - led to great advances in anatomical knowledge. Knowledge that was later built on by individuals such as William Harvey was first discovered by Greek doctor Erasistratus + the notion that the brain controlled the body which Galen later demonstrated in his pig experiment. This was all made possible as a result of government investment in centres of learning from which knowledge could be transmitted across the Greek empire.
Individual Genius - Hippocrates - created a coherent theory which explained many of the illnesses and their treatments. Hippocrates created a culture of collaboration and enquiry amongst Greek doctors as well as making it a profession through his Oath. Gave doctors a higher status + led to better pay - doctors could afford to spend more time on developing their theories by observing patients and invest in specialised equipment with which to treat them.

Question 29

What factors hindered any medical improvement in the Ancient Greek period?

Answer 29

• Attitudes - religion - Religious beliefs = strong amongst Greeks, people continued to see the Gods as deciding their fate. Prevented them from friending scientific cures for illnesses, instead prayed to the Gods as a treatment. Represented by strong religious imagery placed across the Asclepia and elaborate stories on the work of his daughters Panacea and Hygiea. + use of votive stones was widespread, indicating the Greeks continued to turn to Greek Gods for treatments, instead of trained doctors. Items that were purchased as offerings to gods meant money was invested in these offerings which could have instead been used to improve research into medical cures by paying doctors.
• Individual Genius - Hippocrates - his theory (of the four humours) was the basis of medical understanding for centuries. Once the Christian Church accepted his theory in upcoming centuries, Hippocrates’ beliefs became the unshakeable basis for medical theories and the position of the church meant to question Hippocrates’ work, meant to question the church, and in turn, God. Therefore, Hippocrates’ ideas were largely unchallenged for centuries until the discovery of errors in his work, such as the lack of holes in the septum of the heart and the discovery of germs in the 19th Century. Hippocrates was also unable to remove the link between health and the gods. So overall, Hippocrates as an individual genius actually hindered medical knowledge improvement in a way as it left no room to question him and improve their knowledge further or to correct his work.