History of medicine: Up to 1500

200,000 BCE

• Pre-human hominids lived and died, leaving remains which survived until the present day. They were probably almost identical to us, since their remains are anatomically indistinguishable from our own.

 

5000 - 4000 BCE

• Invention of organised healthcare in Sumer. Recording of prescriptions. Libraries of medical guidelines in cuneiform. Legal regulation. Recognition of medical signs such as haematuria and their (unfavourable) prognosis.

 

2000 - 1000 BCE

• c. 1600 BCE : Creation of the Edwin Smith Papyrus, in Ancient Egypt. It was probably produced in Waset (Ancient Thebes). This is the oldest surviving surgical document. It reports 48 cases of traumatic injury and tumours, including eight cases of tumours or ulcers of the breast which were removed by cauterisation with a tool called the fire drill. The author describes signs and symptoms and associates them with prognoses.
  

 

1000 BCE - 0 CE

• c. 460 BCE : Birth of Hippocrates.
• c. 384 BCE : Birth of Aristotle. 
• c. 300 BCE : Birth of Charaka.

 

0CE - 100 CE / first century

• 50 CE - 70 CE : Pedanius Dioscorides publishes De Materia Medica (On Medical Materials).

 

100 CE - 200 CE / second century

• 129 CE : Birth of Galen. 
• 150 CE : Birth of Zhang Zhongjing. 

 

600s / seventh century

• 600 CE : Birth of Sushruta

 

800s / ninth century

• 854 CE : Birth of Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi

 

900s / tenth century

• 936 CE : Birth of Al-Zahrawi.
• 980 CE : Birth of Ibn Sina.

 

1000s / eleventh century

• 1094 CE : Birth of Ibn Zuhr.

 

1300s / fourteenth century

• c. 1300 : Birth of Guy de Chauliac.
• 1385 : Birth of Şerafeddin Sabuncuoğlu. 

 

1400s / fifteenth century

• 1452 : Birth of Leonardo da Vinci.
• 1493-1494 : Birth of Paracelsus.

History of medicine: 16th century