“… To one share of crushed cardamom root add a share of licorice, half a share of zest and two shares of oilseed pomace. Mix thoroughly and boil in grape smoothie. Sprinkle the finished drink on top with amphora mold from last year's wine. Give the patient two oxybafs before going to bed for three days … Apply a piece of cloth soaked in warm vinegar to the forehead and open the doors for fresh wind … ". (Claudius Galen. On the appointment of parts of the human body. / Translated by SP Kondratyev, edited and with notes by VN Ternovsky. M., "Medicine", 1971, p. 127).
This recipe is almost two thousand years old. It was invented by the remarkable doctor Claudius Galen, who lived in the heyday of the Roman Empire. In 164 AD, Emperor Marcus Aurelius ordered a doctor to come to Rome to heal his 8-year-old niece Cornelia Drusila of a long fever.
Galen was at that time a staff doctor of the school of gladiators in the city of Pergamon. For 12 years he treated stab and cut wounds, dissected fighters who died in the arena. This medical practice laid the foundations of modern practical surgery, allowed him to describe the functions of all human muscles and publish more than 400 treatises on the pharmacology of internal medicine.
Crushed cardamom root, licorice, grape sediment and amphora mold are ancient counterparts of modern citramon. Instead of acetylsalicylic acid, there was amphora mold, phenacetin was replaced by licorice, citric acid - by zest, and the function of caffeine was performed by pomace of oil leaves and grape smoothie (young tartar).
Claudius Galen cured the imperial niece and began to practice in Rome. Fifty years of medical practice made the doctor popular among the townspeople. After the death of the doctor, the Roman Senate ordered the issuance of a silver coin with the profile of a genius doctor.
In one hundred and fifty years, the combined cohort of soldiers of the I Italic, V Macedonian and XI Claudian legions will be garrisoned in Olbia. Legionnaires will bring with them the effective medicine of the ancient world and will open the first military hospital in the Northern Black Sea region - the valetudinarium.
Healing ancient and barbaric
Olbia is the farthest territory of Greek colonization. The heat-loving people of Miletus never climbed this far north. The colonists suffered from cold and unfamiliar food. They often got sick and died. Advanced ancient medicine "did not work" in the new climate. The first wave of Greek settlers, according to archaeologists, perished within 5-10 years after arriving in the Northern Black Sea region. The statistics of archaic necropolises of the Olbia periphery record many skeletons of children's and adolescent burials. The Olviopolites paid dearly for their new homeland.
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As time went on, contacts with the local population were established, the ancient medical experience of autochthonous tribes was adopted. A new pharmacology of unusual plants appeared, methods of treatment of unknown diseases appeared. Gradually, the symbiosis of ancient and barbaric healing was established throughout the Olbia state.
What was the medicine of this borderland? What diseases did the Greek colonists experience? What ailments did the local tribes suffer from? How was medical care carried out in ancient times and where did the first doctors gain experience?
There are many questions. The answer to them can be given by paleopathology - a young science that arose at the junction of several disciplines: anthropology, paleobotany, archeology, paleozoology, etc.
Man is that
what he eats
The meeting of barbarian and ancient civilizations on the lands of the future Olbia periphery was accompanied by a global “food stress”. The Greeks arrived in the harsh land from the warm coast of Asia Minor, where established crops have formed the human food chain for centuries. The protein structure of animal meat, carbohydrates of fruits and cereal plants differed at the molecular level from the flora and fauna of the Northern Black Sea region.
The local population had their own gastronomic traditions and were not going to change them to please the newcomers. The Greeks bought “other” grain, “other” meat, fats and milk from the neighboring tribes, and the aborigines were gradually drawn into wine - the oilseed food of the colonists.
At the genetic level, an enzyme conflict began. The Olviopolites drank wine and were happy, the Scythians, on the contrary, quickly became alcoholics. In the History of Herodotus, the saying goes like a refrain: "Drunk as a Scythian." Greek wine was a disaster for the nomads. In the blood of cattle breeders, there was no enzyme "alcohol dehydrogenase", which is responsible for the breakdown of ethanol in the human body and abstinence (addiction) to alcohol. The drunkenness of the Scythians was reflected in the ceramic architecture of these tribes. If the Greeks lazily pulled wine from camphor with a stem (it was convenient to put them on the table), then the rude nomads drank undiluted vinegar from Skyphos, which can be put on a flat surface only upside down, completely emptying the vessel.
The food conflict of civilizations gave rise to an explosion of infant mortality and shortened human life. The latest studies by paleopathologists show that the average life expectancy of Olviopolitan men was 30 years, women - 28. Before the arrival of the Greeks in the Northern Black Sea region, this indicator for local tribes was 33 and 30 years, respectively.
Full adaptation to the new food among the population of the Olbian Chora took place only in the Hellenistic era (late 4th - early 1st centuries BC). After three hundred years of being together, the assimilated descendants of the Hellenes and barbarians acquired a single gastronomy and began to suffer from other diseases.
Old ailments
and new
Modern paleopathology has a limited set of tools for determining the nomenclature of ancient diseases. Specialists can only diagnose those diseases that have left marks on the human bone remains.
In 2000, an archaeological expedition of the Nikolaev Regional Museum of Local Lore carried out large-scale excavations of an antique necropolis on the southwestern outskirts of the village of Katelino, Ochakovsky district. More than 300 burials of the rural area of the Olbia state were uncovered. The established place names of the ancient cemetery had their own children's, military and women's sectors. The rich landowners were buried separately, and the poor community members were buried separately.
A medical map of the ancient village necropolis was opened before the archaeologists. Approximately 20% of the bones in children's burials showed rickety deviations from the norm, almost all of them had bone thinning due to a lack of calcium in the food. In half of the female burials, there was an obvious pathology of lordosis (towards the back) curvature of the spine - a consequence of unbearable physical work.
Bone remains in the graves of the military sector kept traces of stabbing and chopped wounds. On the skull of one male skeleton, archaeologists counted 5 (!) Traces of healed depressed fractures - evidence of the skillful work of ancient surgeons.
Paleopathologists rightly note in the ancient Greek policies a small number of chronic diseases. The human immune system in the new climatic conditions could not withstand various kinds of inflammatory processes for a long time. Bronchitis and colds as a result of hypothermia of the body proceeded quickly and were almost always fatal. Sluggish current chronic malaise could only be afforded by members of the well-to-do elite who had access to qualified medical care. For the poor community members and slaves, a long illness meant certain death.
In the urban necropolis of Olbia, there are practically no skeletons with pronounced traces of dental caries. This disease is noted only in the burials of the countryside of the Greek polis. In 1994, during the excavations of the ancient necropolis "Didova Khata", the burial of a 10-year-old boy was discovered, who had a mouth full of carious teeth.
Periodontal disease spread among the colonists of the Hellenistic time. Traces of this disease are found in almost every sixth burial of Olviopolites.
Medical science developed unevenly in the immense space of the Greek oecumene. On the territory of the states of the Athenian Maritime Union, there were dozens of medical centers with rich traditions. The most famous were the Rhodes, Kyrenian, Croton, Cnidus and Kos schools. The most titled medical academy, from which the famous Hippocrates came, was located on the island of Kos.
Hippocrates was a wandering doctor. He, of course, was not the "father of medicine", which already existed several thousand years before him. However, such scientific treatises as "Prognostics", "On air, waters, localities", "On fractures", "On head wounds" and "On repositioning of joints" made him immortal in time.
Advanced medicine traveled with Greek colonists throughout the ancient world. In the III century BC, it was established in Olbia.
Forceps, scalpel, catheter
Medical practice in the Olbia policy is a sacred craft. The cult of Asclepius was one of the most popular among the townspeople.
According to legend, Asclepius was born by caesarean section, which was performed by his father Apollo, who snatched a newborn baby from the womb of the dying mother Koronis - the daughter of the fiery titan Phlegius. Asclepius learned the art of healing from the wise centaur Chiron, whom Apollo entrusted with raising his son. Soon the student surpassed his teacher and learned not only to heal the sick, but also to bring the dead back to life, which aroused the wrath of the god of the underworld and the kingdom of the dead, Hades.
Health care in Olbia was put on a state basis. In the meeting of the Olbian archons, the doctor was present without fail.
It was here that archaeologists discovered the largest collection of ancient medical instruments, which is now kept in the Kiev Historical Museum. A total of 52 subjects. Bronze ear probes, silver catheters and tweezers, original arrowhead retrieval tools and cauterizers, trepanning chisel and vasodilators.
Olbian surgeons performed amputations of extremities, removed stones from the bladder, in the event of the death of a woman in labor, they performed a caesarean section and saved the baby, treated fractures and dislocations, excised appendicitis and trepanned the skull.
In the winter of 2000, the inhabitants of the village of Parutino, driven to despair by poverty and lack of food, went out with shovels to the territory of the Olbia necropolis. In two months they plundered two hundred antique burials. The city cemetery was guarded in antiquity, and therefore almost all burials were accompanied by funeral implements. Parutintsy saved their children from hunger, but … completely destroyed the history of the Greek polis of the classical period.
Archaeologists from the regional inspection for the protection of historical and cultural monuments arrived at the site of the disaster. The excavated necropolis was a sad sight. Opened graves, fragments of pottery and scattered skeletons of ancient Olviopolites. In one of the plundering dumps, the skull of an adult man was found. A neat 3.5 cm hole was drilled in the left frontal lobe, closed with a brass plate. An ancient surgeon took a Roman stater, flattened a coin on an anvil, and closed the hole in the patient's skull. The edges of the plate had time to be hardened with a thick layer, which means that the operation was successful and the person lived for some time.
Olbia medicine "died" with the city. Ancient healing will interrupt its progressive development in the dark Middle Ages. The church will forbid anatomy of corpses, and surgery will for a long time become a side specialization of barbers, blacksmiths and bath attendants. However, this is a completely different story.
Sergey Gavrilov