Cannabis is widely considered to be one of the most widespread options when it comes to medicinal herbs. However, in ancient times the plant’s popularity was far greater, and its use much more common...
Of all the methods of healing and therapy, one would never think of hypothermia as an effective medical aid. But is there more to cold than we realize? Therapeutic hypothermia has surprisingly old...
In the ancient world, many cultures built elaborate temple complexes dedicated to their healer gods - Imhotep in Egypt and Asklepios in Greece for example. These gods were recognized as having the...
The history of wine stretches back to around 6,000 BC in the country of Georgia near the Caucasus mountains. However, knowledge of the wine and the wine-making process is scant at best. The most in-...
An indigenous people living largely undisturbed in the Bolivian Amazonian rainforest for centuries may hold the key to understanding (and possibly even reversing) the aging process. Previous research...
The Trotula is a very well-known 12 th century text, originally written for male medical practitioners treating gynecological or obstetrical issues, which reveals a great deal about how people...
When it comes to plants with powerful medical applications Asia can be called the ‘traditional home.’ However, this is not the case when it comes to opium poppies, for new research has shown their...
The ancient Chinese healing practice of Gua Sha (pronounced gwashah) requires scraping your face, scalp or body with a specially shaped flat piece of jade or rose quartz. Now, Gua Sha has swept...
Researchers studying the antique medicine chest of Japanese Edo -era physician , Ogata Koan, discovered enough poison to kill a small army. But why? Koan was a leading a 19th century Japanese medical...
Gold is arguably the human race’s most valued commodity and a lot could be written about the history of this metal. The luster, beauty, resistance to tarnishing, malleability, and overall brilliance...
Since ancient times people have had to deal with runny and stuffy noses, coughs, body aches, chills, and all the other unpleasantness that accompanies being bitten by a winter bug. While there is no...
The discovery of an ancient Etruscan honey harvesting workshop at Focello in Italy, and the analysis of charred remains unearthed at the site, has let archaeologists to propose a remarkable...
Gynecology is the “science of women” and the term given to the modern medical discipline that focuses on the female reproductive system. The 19th-century physician James Marion Sims developed new...
Doctors the world over take the Hippocratic oath swearing to do no harm to patients. In doing this, to quote the words of the oath itself, they “call upon Apollo the physician and Asclepius, Hygeia...
A possible medical breakthrough has been made by experts, all thanks to a 1000-year-old medieval English medical text. A treatment, that dates to the Dark Ages , is helping researchers to treat a...
We have all heard of Bubonic plague , smallpox and typhoid , but between 990 and 1130 AD it is estimated that over 50,000 people died from the so-called “Holy Fire” disease in southern France alone,...
The internet is awash with comparisons between life during COVID-19 and life during the Bubonic plague . The two have many similarities, from the spread of misinformation and the tracking of...
About 60,000 years ago, pre-historic humans began emerging out of Africa and shared hunting places and cave residences with Neanderthal populations in what is today Europe. Meanwhile, on the other...
Human remains found on a Greek island are changing how experts view the development of surgical interventions in the proto-Byzantine period. A skull shows the traces of complex brain surgery . The...
New research from Adelphi University has revealed the first forensically-assessed archaeological discovery of remains of a group of domineering mounted archer-lancers and their kin of the Eastern...
A German research team has produced new nanosheets for near infrared imaging from ancient ‘Egyptian blue pigment’. In October 2018, I wrote an Ancient Origins article about Egyptian blue, a brilliant...
Trephination (known also as trepanning, trepanation, trephining, or making a burr hole), is a surgical procedure, which involves the drilling of a hole in the skull of a living person. Trephination...
Eutyches was a homo bonus - a good man - and evidently a good surgeon . His name was engraved, probably by a grateful patient, on the wall of the cubiculum where patients were kept under observation...
The ruins of a 14th century Aztec ‘sweat lodge’, known as a temazcal, have been unearthed in Mexico City . It is located in the historic La Merced district and helps experts pinpoint where...