The higher the socio-economic level of modern society, the more efficient is the organization of the environment for the conditions of human life (even in space). Therefore, both biologism and abstract sociologism in solving problems of medicine are metaphysical and unscientific. In the listed facts, one can notice the decisive importance in understanding the theory of medicine and health care, the general worldview, taking into account the socio-economic foundations, the class approach.
Description of diseases in ancient times and modern terminology. Practical experience of doctors has been accumulated over several millennia. It may be recalled that the activity of ancient doctors was carried out on the basis of the great experience of their predecessors. In 60 books of Hippocrates, in which, apparently, the works of his students were also reflected, a significant number of names of internal diseases were discovered, which, it was assumed, were quite familiar to the reader.
Before the activities of Hippocrates and his school, doctors distinguished at least 50 manifestations of internal pathology. A rather long enumeration of various morbid conditions and, accordingly, different designations is given in order to more specifically represent the great successes of observations, albeit primitive, of doctors of ancient civilizations - more than 2500 years ago. It is useful to realize this and thus be attentive to the hard work of our predecessors.
The position of medicine in society. The concern of people for the treatment of wounds and diseases has always existed and achieved some success in varying degrees in connection with the development of society and culture. In the most ancient civilizations - for 2-3 thousand years BC. - there were already some legislation regulating medical practice, for example, the Hammurabi code, etc.
Quite detailed information about ancient medicine was found in the papyri of Ancient Egypt. The papyri of Eberts and Edwin Smith provided a summary of medical knowledge. A narrow specialization was characteristic of the medicine of Ancient Egypt, there were separate healers for the treatment of lesions of the eyes, teeth, head, stomach, as well as the treatment of invisible diseases (!) (Perhaps they refer to internal pathology?). This extreme specialization is considered one of the reasons that delayed the progress of medicine in Egypt.
In ancient India, along with many empirical advances in medicine, surgery reached a particularly high level (removal of cataracts, removal of stones from the bladder, plastic surgery of the face, etc.); the position of healers seems to have always been honorable. In Ancient Babylon (according to the Hammurabi code) there was a high specialization, and there were also public schools of healers. Ancient China had extensive experience in healing; the Chinese were the first pharmacologists in the world, they havepaid great attention to disease prevention, believing that a real doctor is not the one who treats the sick person, but the one who prevents the disease; their healers distinguished about 200 types of pulse, 26 of them to determine the prognosis.
At the beginning of European civilization, since the ancient period of Ancient Greece, together with the exclusion of religious views on diseases, medicine received the highest praise. This was evidenced by the statement of the playwright Aeschylus (525–456) in the tragedy "Prometheus", in which Prometheus's main feat was in teaching people to provide medical assistance.
Repeated devastating epidemics such as the plague have at times paralyzed the population with fear of "divine punishment." "In ancient times, medicine, apparently, was so high and its benefits are so obvious that the art of medicine was included in the religious cult, was the affiliation of the deity" (Botkin SP, ed. 1912).
In parallel with temple medicine, there were medical schools of fairly high qualifications (Kos, Knids schools), whose help was especially evident in the treatment of injured or wounded people.