Alchemy as the Precursor to Modern Medicine Practices

Often medicines were made from herbs, spices and resins. The medicine was applied in drinks, pills, washes, baths, rubs, poultices, purges and ointments. Which sometimes themselves contained fatal ingredients.

We find that the “oldest written sources of western medicine are The Hippocratic writings from the 5th and 4th centuries BC; which covers all aspects of medicine at that time and contain numerous medical terms.”(Wulff) This was the beginning of the Greek era of the language of medicine, which lasted even after the Roman

In the early days of alchemy, many scholars doubted the authenticity and credibility of alchemy as a scholarly field of study. They labeled it as “mystical” and challenged greatly the possibilities of alchemical transmutations and any practitioner’s credibility. However, alchemy was still practiced and discussed in all levels of society. Alchemy has been discovered in recent times to have been central to the development of early modern science and medicine. The practice of alchemy has made many contributions to the development of modern chemical medicines.

The logic and principles of medieval medicine shaped those of Modern medicine. Never was there a more efficient method perfected, so much that it remained through history through so many hundreds of years. Today’s concepts of diagnosis, relationships with the church, anatomy, surgery, hospitals and training, and public health were established in the Middle Ages.

Medieval medicine was rooted in Ancient Greek practices. In 65 A.D., a Greek writer, Discorides, wrote a book, Material Medica. The book is about medical use of over five-hundred different plants. The book is translated into Hebrew and Arabic. Doctors in the Early Modern Era knew very little, and they used plants as the most important care and/or treatment. Due to unsanitary places and tools, many different diseases spread around Europe. Life was challenging during the Early Modern Era because of many diseases(Alchin). During the 1500s- 1600s, diseases overtook many people because doctors knew little, medicine was unknown, and there were many causes.

This, therefore, takes us to the most shared concerns people present about how homeopathic medicines are manufactured and of their safety. The raw materials used for various homeopathic medicines are known poisons. Samuel Hahnemann’s goal was to search for a means to treat patients less severely than the treatments used in his day, which often involved purging, leeching, bloodletting,

During the 18th Century, medicines were considered a trial and error methodology. If chemists were mixing concoctions in their man made labs, doctors theorized the treatment of a particular diagnosis. In the journal Two Centuries of American Medicine written in 1976, authors Bordley and Saunders wrote “Tinctures, poultices, soups, and teas were made with water- or alcohol-based extracts of freshly ground or dried

Prior to 18th century Europe there were a few effective medical developments but most treatments lacked medical value. An idea developed by the ancient Greeks and Romans insisted that bloodletting was a fantastic remedy to difficult diseases but it did more harm than good (Doc 4). Another flaw in medicine is the level of hygiene in the institutions that provided care. The sick were crammed into dirty hospitals, dead lay beside those clinging to life, and the air was

In America if someone is sick or not feeling well, they simply go to the doctors and have a prescription sent to their local pharmacy. However, in ancient Mexico when someone became ill, the Aztecs resulted to collecting natural resources and creating their own medicine to cure each other. Mexico has a rich tradition of herbal use going back many centuries (“Aztec Medicine”). Aztecs result to the use of nature due to the fact that Mexico has one of the most diverse selections of plants native to the country, as well as a variety of species both native to and introduced to Mexico from diverse parts of the globe (“Medicines”).

The forerunner of today's pharmacist, the apothecary procured, mixed, and evaluated medications. The role of the apothecary-pharmacist has undergone many changes over the centuries. Once associated with the supernatural and alchemy, the apothecary became a leading health care practitioner whose field of expertise was based on science and who often treated patients directly. Eventually, the traditional apothecary was replaced by pharmacists, as we know them from the local drug store. Today, the pharmacist is primarily a dispenser of drugs already formulated and manufactured by pharmaceutical

Medicines were mostly produced to cure diseases. Back in the 1600s scurvy and malaria were huge problems that needed to be dealt with. As mentioned in previous paragraph malaria was treated by the bark of the Cinchona tree and is still used today. “The bark of the Cinchona tree (called quina quina by the indigenous Peruvians), found in the rain forests along the Amazon River in the Andes of South America, contained an ingredient called quinine, which is still used in the treatment of malaria, a disease transmitted by the bite of an infected mosquito and one of the oldest plagues of mankind” (Cassell, Dank K., and Cynthia A. Sanoski). This shows that achievements made back then are still important to this date. Scurvy was a disease caused by vitamin deficiency, but that was not known back then. Jacques Cartier is a French explorer whose crew got infected with scurvy. Jacques and his crew came in contact with an Iroquois tribe in the New World, who knew how to cure scurvy. The women of the tribe would use juniper needles and bark to make a tea and use the leftover tea to wash the affected person’s leg. Juniper needles and bark contain a lot of vitamins the human body needs, so when the affected person drank the juniper tea they got all the vitamins they lost back in turn curing scurvy. Poisons also had reasons why they were needed. Hemlock and aconite are deadly poisons

Medicine has come a long way from the Greek period. Theories composed of the four elements were used to explain the sick phenomenon that happens to our bodies. Many of the those theories are not relevant as of now. Medicine and remedies has begun with the Earth, providing all types of compounds and

Throughout history chemistry has had a large impact on the field of medicine. Things such as

Paracelsus received little attention in Germany and France during his life. Posthumously, however, the manuscripts abandoned in small towns from his wanderings reached publishers and his ideas were printed and disseminated to mixed reviews. While some were quick to defend Paracelsianism—Peter Severinus, for instance—by remarking on the failures of Galenic medicine to treat new European diseases, others—such as Erastus—were unwilling to abandon the well-established philosophy and the humoral medicine of antiquity. Johannes Guinter van Andernach and Severinus, although espousing Paracelsianism to different degrees, reconciled Paracelsus’ principles with the accepted Aristotelian causes by approaching Paracelsian theories as both physical and philosophical theories. Upon consideration of the purported alchemical cures, van Andernach was willing to make these concessions in reconciling the two worldviews, but he wholly denounced Paracelsus’ mysticism.

In the 1500,s and 1600 's, doctors and scientists made important advances in Pharmacology and in other fields of science. In the early 1500 's, Swiss physician Philippus Paracelsus pioneered in the use of minerals