West meets east: early Greek and Babylonian diagnosis

Abstract

Studies of Greek medicine and Babylonian medicine usually show little awareness of the richness of source material in the other discipline. The present study attempts to begin bridging the gap by showing that early Greek medicine and late Babylonian medicine had much in common, to a surprising extent. Certain early treatises in the Corpus Hippocraticum show clear parallels with Babylonian medicine, in both form and content. These Greek medical texts pay little attention to theory, such as a theory of the four 'humours', nor to diet or venesection, but consisted of prognosis based upon observation of the patient's external features, as well as drug-based recipes, and these characteristics also reflect the current state of Babylonian medicine at that time.