Thomas Jeffries /The Conversation The mention of ancient Egypt usually conjures images of colossal pyramids and precious, golden tombs. But as with most civilizations, the invisible world of...
At a time when human beings are suffering from a host of illnesses caused by stress and modern-day living, the need for ancient wisdom has never been more important. In fact, many people have become...
Bacterial poisoning via food and water – but also via contact such as kisses – caused a lot of suffering during the Stone Age. Diseases that today can be treated with antibiotics were then fatal, a...
Pragya Agarwal /The Conversation In the medieval period, medical science was still dominated by the ancient writings of Hippocrates from the fifth century and Galen of Pergamon from the second...
Getting high off toxic solvents and chemicals to induce mind-altering effects is a public health concern today. But dial back 5,000 years, in the Iberian Peninsula, and groups of women adorned in...
As long as life has existed on earth, so have issues associated with maintaining health and the remediation of disease. Today, when many of us get sick, our first course of action is to call the...
A brilliant and comprehensive new study has analyzed the DNA of almost 10,000 people from ancient and pre-modern societies, and found 6 cases of Down syndrome in past or ancient human populations...
By Nicholas Bourne /The Conversation Many of us want to live long, happy and healthy lives. Yet it’s often confusing to know the best way to achieve this, and many aspects of modern, westernized...
Leigh Hopper /University of Southern California You might think age-related dementia has been with us all along, stretching back to the ancient world. But a new analysis of classical Greek and Roman...
When the Black Death or bubonic plague epidemic ravaged London between the autumn of 1348 and the spring of 1350, it may have wiped out as much as half the city’s population. While the victims of...
Vlad Dracul, the infamous medieval Romanian ruler known as Vlad the Impaler and the inspiration for the character of Count Dracula , is considered one of the most bloodthirsty rulers in human history...
The skeletal remains of a woman who lived in Portugal between the 14th and 19th centuries show that she suffered a physical injury so severe that it caused an extraordinarily large growth to appear...
In order to understand the history of probiotics, one needs to imagine a time before modern medicine , when people looked to nature to heal their ailments. Many ancient civilizations consumed...
Is it time to kill the term “placebo effect”? A researcher looking at questionable medieval medicines, that are today shunned as placebos, has shown how early physicians triggered patient’s brains...
Visit any park in China over the last few hundred years and you’re likely to see dozens of people practicing qigong. What started as a traditional Chinese treatment over 4,000 years ago has become a...
The British Museum houses a tablet which provides a peek into work-life balance in ancient Egypt. It documents the number of sick days and why 40 workers took time off from their workplace in 1250 BC...
One of the most fascinating medical phenomena is the placebo effect. In medicine, a placebo is considered to be any medical treatment that is not “real.” This could be a fake pill, shot, or in some...
For all of Europe’s pretentions of progress with civil democracies and human rights, the archives are filled with anything but. From the blood of Roman gladiators being sold as a remedy for epilepsy...
When Tutankhamun’s tomb was first discovered in 1922, archaeologist Howard Carter was stunned by the astonishing array of grave goods – more than 5,000 artifacts were left for the boy king to use in...
Between Dunkin Donuts and Starbucks, coffee is everywhere. If you’re a coffee lover, you may have wondered about how coffee came to be throughout history. In early times, however, some people...
The Black Death or Black Plague killed somewhere between 75 and 200 million people in just seven years, from 1346 to 1353. About 50 million died in Europe alone, which made it the epicenter of the...
Male impotence, commonly known as erectile dysfunction, is known today to have many causes, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, post-prostatectomy procedures, neurological or psychological...
It is well-known that modern humans interbred with Neanderthals during the time they co-existed in Europe and Asia. A 2018 study revealed an interesting and intriguing detail about that interbreeding...
The remains of an ancient hunter-gatherer unearthed long ago at the Rinnukalns archaeological site in Latvia, has tested positive for Yersina pestis, which is better known as the bacteria behind the...