The Past
Prehistoric medicine
Medicine has a very long history. It has been practiced since prehistoric time, which is the time before any documents was written. In that time, people blamed sickness and illness to evil spirits. So, the shaman, which is a doctor with divine power, need to perform some certain rituals with the power from the gods to remove it. Sometimes, they even used a sharp stone to cut a whole in the patient’s head to release the spirit. This process is called trephination; surprisingly, most of the patients who had done this surgery survive even the surgery didn’t have complicated modern instruments. The prehistoric men also found medical uses of plants, fungi, and animal. They used these herbal medicines as drugs to cure diseases. Besides these practices, they also used clay to heel broken bones. Though these practices seem stupid when compared to modern medicine, they were the start of medicine.