Medical Literature - History

History

Throughout history people have written about diseases, how human beings might contract them and what could be done to remedy it. Medicine ranged from folklore, witchcraft to the current Evidence-based medicine. Among the most notable descriptions are texts from Egypt (Imhotep, Edwin Smith Papyrus, Ebers Papyrus, Kahun Gynecological Papyrus), Mesopotamia (Diagnostic Handbook, Alkindus, De Gradibus), India (Ayurveda, Sushruta Samhita, Charaka Samhita), China (Yellow Emperor, Huangdi Neijing), Greece (Iliad and Odyssey are the earliest sources of Greek medical practise; Hippocratic medicine), Persia (Rhazes, Avicenna, The Canon of Medicine, The Book of Healing), Spain (Abulcasis, Kitab al-Tasrif) and Syria (Ibn al-Nafis, Commentary on Anatomy in Avicenna's Canon, Comprehensive Book on Medicine).

Following Vesalius, William Harvey, Ignaz Semmelweis, Louis Pasteur, and others, the medical community have changed the way it conducts research. After incorporating the scientific method medical literature has introduced the so-called peer review, and is currently divided into journals and textbooks.

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