Hippocrates had asserted that madness was simply a disease of the
brain and then Galen had agreed and advocated merciful treatment
of the insane. Galen's great remedies were proper diet, exercise,
massage, and bathing. He taught the importance of a good water
supply and good drainage. Greek medicinal doctrines were assumed,
such as that preservation of the health of the body was dependant
on air, food, drink, movement and repose, sleeping and waking,
excretion and retention, and the passions. It was widely known
that sleep was restorative and that bad news or worry could spoil
one's digestion. An Italian book of 1507 showed that post-mortem
examinations could show cause of death by gallstones, heart
disease, thrombosis of the veins, or abscesses. In 1540 began the
practice of giving bodies of hanged felons to surgeons to dissect.
This was to deter the commission of felony. There was some feeling
that dissection was a sacrilege, that the practice of medicine was
a form of sorcery, and that illness and disease should be dealt
with by prayer and/or atonement because caused by sin, the wrath
of God, or by the devil. In 1543, Flemish physician Andreas
Vesalius, who had secretly dissected human corpses, published the
first finely detailed description of human anatomy. In it, there
was no missing rib on one side of man, and this challenged the
theory of the woman Eve having been made from a rib of the man
Adam.
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