Melissa Bees, age 11, of Boardman, Ohio, for her question:
WHO WAS FIRST TO PRACTICE MEDICINE?
Back in prehistoric times, most of the people thought that angry gods or evil spirits caused disease. The gods would have to be pacified or the evil spirits driven from the body, the people believed, before the sick could be cured. The world's first doctors were most likely the tribal priests who worked out many ways to get rid of evil spirits and make the gods happy.
Scientists tell us that the first surgical treatment was probably performed about 10,000 years ago by a tribal priest. He performed an operation called trephining which involved the use of a stone instrument that was used to cut a hole in a patient's skull.
Trephining was performed in prehistoric days as a way of releasing spirits believed responsible for headaches, mental illness or epilepsy.
Prehistoric men probably also discovered many plants that could be used as drugs.
By about 3,000 B.C., the Egyptians had developed one of the world's first great civilizations and had also invented one of the world's first systems of writing. About this time, they also made important medical progress.
Historians say the world's first physician was an Egyptian named Imhotep, who lived about 2700 B.C.
Ancient Hebrews made progress in preventative medicine from about 1200 to 600 B.C. And about this time, medical practices were also being developed in China and India.
In about 400 B.C., the Greek physician Hippocrates began showing that diseases had only natural causes. He thus became the first doctor known to consider medicine a science and art separate from the practice of religion.
After 300 B.C., Rome gradually conquered much of the civilized world, including Egypt and Greece. The Romans got most of their medical knowledge from these two countries, but also established important achievements in public health.
During the A.D. 100s, a Greek physician named Galen, who practiced medicine in Rome, developed medical theories based on scientific experiments.
He is considered to be the founder of experimental medicine.
From about A.D. 400 to the 1500s, many contributions to medicine came from the Moslem Empire of Southwest and Central Asia.
The chief medical advances in Europe during the Middle Ages were the founding of many hospitals and the first university medical schools.