A Short History of Medical Practice in Greece and Rome

Persons with disabilities have been confronted the physical and mental impediments of their disability, but also with the social stigma and negative social attitudes. A persistent social rejection of people with disabilities is evident throughout history and cross cultures. Ancient Roman and Greek cultures viewed persons with physical disabilities as burdens on society and as less than human. People with mental illness were viewed as either immoral souls punished by God, or as being possessed by demonic spirits requiring exorcisms and other religious interventions.

Negative attitudes and a high degree of social distance towards people with disabilities have been recorded. Attitudes towards mental illness have been referred to as the least socially acceptable.

Roman medicine has had a long history, since overpowering of Grecian control in both secular and religious positions, but religious healing had the more lasting influence. The Etruscan heritage is shown in the early Roman reliance on divination such as religious processions to ward off plagues persisted into the Middle Ages.   As far back as the seventh century B.C. categories for each disease or symptom was alloted for a special divinity.

Over time, superstition gradually gave way to more rational attitudes.  As Rome dominated Greece more and more politically, Greek culture became the dominant force in the intellectual life of the Romans. In medicine the attitudes, methods, and practices were almost entirely Greek.  For the most part each family was attended to by the head of the household but no citizen practiced outside his home.

The number of Greeks and other foreigners continued to transfer into the powerful city of Rome. Many early healers were notably incompetent and unscrupulous, and most were slaves, but more and more Greek and Roman attitudes and methods began gradually to merge.

The acceptance of Greek practitioners in the first century B.C. was influenced by teachings by Erasistratus in the third century B.C. The general public was impressed by his personality, methods, and result. It was reported that he had restored a dead man to life.

 Asclepiads used methods, such as diet; exercise; massage; music and singing. One of his most successful procedures was tracheotomy for obstruction to breathing. For mental illness, he utilized opium, wine, and hygienic measures. He employed bleeding and for fevers used the traditional custom of marked restricting both food and drink.

Most Roman practitioners were mainly slaves and former. Physicians were usually of Greek origin, but Egyptians and Jews also practiced. There were government slave physicians for sick slaves and those who were assistants to free and freedmen physicians.

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As in earlier times in Greece, midwives actively practiced obstetrics. Some women were looked upon as female doctors.

The training of physicians changed from unregulated individual instruction for a fee to supervision   compensated teachers in a school that included courses other than medicine. Bedside teaching was required.

The Roman talent for organization did not extend as willingly to institutional care of the sick and injured. However, infirmaries for sick slaves were established, and even free Romans sometimes used them. There were really no other places except the offices and perhaps homes of physicians where the ill and wounded could be domiciled, treated, and cared for.