The earliest known physician is also credited to ancient Egypt: Hesy-Ra, "Chief of Dentists and Physicians" for King Djoser in the 27th century BCE. Also, the earliest known woman physician, Peseshet, practiced in Ancient Egypt at the time of the 4th dynasty.
Imhotep, the remarkable African physician whose skills were unrivaled in his time, eventually became known as the Egyptian god of medicine.
The first physician of whom we have any definite record is evidently I-em-Hetep, who lived in the reign of King Tchser, a monarch of the Third Dynasty of Egypt, the date of whose reign is somewhat uncertain, but is probably not later than 4500 B. C. In the light of recently awakened interest in psychotherapeutics and ...
At the beginning of the 1800s, the medical field was a male-dominated field where not all doctors were professionally trained. Many doctors in rural areas went through apprenticeships instead of attending medical school.
Most people in Medieval times never saw a doctor. They were treated by the local wise-woman who was skilled in the use of herbs, or by the priest, or the barber, who pulled out teeth, set broken bones and performed other operations.
Surgery in the 17th century was still fairly crude. Barber-surgeons treated wounds and performed amputations without anaesthetic, using instruments which had not been washed since they had last been used - washing iron instruments, of course, encouraged them to rust.
Hippocrates of Kos ( c. 460 – c. 370 BCE), considered the "father of modern medicine." The Hippocratic Corpus is a collection of around seventy early medical works from ancient Greece strongly associated with Hippocrates and his students.
Even today, rhinoplasty described by Shushruta in 600 BC is referred to as the Indian flap and he is known as the originator of plastic surgery. He described six varieties of accidental injuries encompassing all parts of the body.
The medical hierarchy of practitioners was physician, surgeon and apothecary, and each had defined functions. Physicians, who had gone to university, were the real 'doctors', and surgeons and apothecaries, who trained by apprenticeships, were 'mister'.
In the very first Doctor Who episode, An Unearthly Child (1963), she attracted the attention of her two teachers, Barbara and Ian , at Coal Hill School (where, many years later, companion Clara would teach).
A 100-year-old Ohio man who holds the Guinness World Record for being the oldest practising doctor, says that he has no immediate plans to retire. In February 2021, when he was 98 years and 231 days old, Dr. Howard Tucker of Cleveland received initial recognition as the oldest practising physician in the world.
Traditional medical practices during most of the 19th century relied on symptomatic treatment, consisting primarily of bloodletting, blistering, and high doses of mineral poisons. These medical regimens resulted in high rates of death in patients unfortunate enough to undergo treatment.
Dentistry is one of the oldest medical professions, dating back to 7000 B.C. with the Indus Valley Civilization.
There were three different kinds of medical practitioners: apothecaries, surgeons and physicians. Apothecaries were doctors who could give medical advice and prescribe medicines but were limited in the hands-on department of physically treating patients.
However, medicine in the 1700s was drastically different than it is today, from the understanding of medicine to how someone trained to become a doctor, to how patients were treated. Most physicians in colonial North America were trained through apprenticeships, not by attending medical school.
The most protracted operation reported lasted for 96 hours and was performed on 4-8 February 1951 in Chicago, Illinois, USA on Mrs Gertrude Levandowski (USA) for the removal of an ovarian cyst. During the operation her weight fell 280 kg (616 lb / 44 st) to 140 kg (308 lb / 22 st).
Skeleton missing lower left leg and dated to 31,000 years ago provides the earliest known evidence for surgical limb removal.
Al Zahrawi is considered the father of operative surgery. He is credited with performance of the first thyroidectomy. The last chapter of his comprehensive book, named “On Surgery”, was dedicated to surgical instruments. He introduced over 200 surgical tools, a staggering number by all standards.
At the beginning of the 17th century, medical practice in England was divided into three groups: the physicians, the surgeons, and the apothecaries. Physicians were seen as elite. They most often held a university degree. Surgeons were typically hospital-trained and they did apprenticeships.
Doctor comes from the Latin word for "teacher" and originally referred to a small group of theologians who had approval from the Church to speak on religious matters. Eventually the term saw greater use referring to qualified academic and medical professionals.
With Dr. Morton's tenacity driven by enthusiasm and discovery, he and renowned surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital, John Collins Warren (1778-1856) made history on October 16, 1846 with the first successful surgical procedure performed with anesthesia.
6500 B.C.: Evidence of trepanation, the first surgical procedure, dates to 6500 B.C. Trepanation was the practice of drilling or cutting a hole through the skull to expose the brain. This was thought to cure mental illness, migraines, epileptic seizures and was used as emergency surgery after a head wound.
Ironically the use of chloroform initially led to the 'black period of surgery', a 20-year period when the death rate actually went up. However, this was not the fault of Simpson or chloroform. With patients unconscious, surgeons could now take their time over operations and attempt more difficult invasive surgery .
The best-known Viking physician was the Icelander Hrafn Sveinbjarnarson (c1166–1213), who was highly regarded for his skills. Hence, medical treatment included lancing, cleaning wounds, anointing, bandaging, setting broken bones, preparing herbal remedies (including local herbs) and midwifery.