The History of Medicine and Healing

Vasily Anatolyevich Loginov — Professor at the Faculty of Fundamental Medicine of Lomonosov Moscow State University, Doctor of Medical Sciences, full member of the International Academy of Astronautics, Moscow Society of Naturalists, St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences and Arts, Moscow City Organization of the Union of Writers of Russia, Russian and Moscow Societies of Historians of Medicine. This book collects materials for lectures delivered by the author to students of the Faculty of Fundamental Medicine of Moscow State University. They tell the story of those doctors from the distant past who, often feeling their way, managed to find original solutions in the world of practices and recipes. Medical science has gone through childhood, adolescence, and youth and has entered adulthood, so that from its height it can critically examine the healing methods used by ancient priests, shamans, and alchemists, the reasons for the emergence and transformation of the medical devices we are familiar with today, the fields of the eternal battle against pain and infections, the evolution of medical ethics, and fundamental approaches to treatment. The history of medicine, which has found itself at the intersection of the natural sciences and the humanitarian spheres of human development, is closely intertwined with the biographies of artists, writers, philosophers, and military officers, many of whom are dedicated pages in this book. 56 essays touch upon key episodes and "problems" described and interpreted from historical, medical, and philosophical perspectives. A remarkable, harmonious mosaic of facts, quotes, analogies, and allusions forms a volumetric portrait of the healing era spanning several millennia.