Surely you have heard about Hippocrates, the considered father of medicine, who lived in ancient Greece between 460 and 370 BC and to which important contributions to this science are attributed.Recently, also, the discovery of graves Tombstones with 25 skeletons inside allowed to analyze the faeces of ancient Greeks and ratify what Hippocrates already described at the time.
Discovery and analysis of feces of ancient Greeks
The Greek island of Kea deparo not long ago surprised archaeologists: they discovered a series of sepulchral graves containing at least 25 skeletons of the Neolithic era (4th millennium BC), from the Age of Bronze (2nd millennium BC) and Roman times (between 146 BC and 330 AD).And among the skeletons were feces of ancient Greeks that can provide some new insights into life, parasites and the medical knowledge of Ancient Greece.
Scientists at the University of Cambridge analyzed these feces of ancient Greeks in their microscopes and discovered that they were plagued with eggs from multiple parasites.As described in the published study In the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports , the medical team found evidence of intestinal parasites in the feces of at least four individuals.
Confirmation of theories of Hippocrates thanks to feces of ancient Greeks
The most interesting of all is that these parasites seem to coincide with the worms described for the first time in the texts of Hippocrates, who described three types of intestinal parasites and their Symptoms: Helmins Strongyle , Ascaris and Helmins plateia .
Cambridge principal investigator and archaeologist, Piers Mitchell, declared at the time of the publication of the study: «It is likely that Helmins Strongyle of the ancient Greek texts outside the intestinal worm, as found in Kea.The worm Ascaris described in the ancient Medical texts could well have referred to two parasites: the pinworm or intestinal worm, a small cylindrical body parasite that lodges in the intestine of the human being and lays the eggs in the anus of the affected, and the tricocephalus, also known as whipworms , which was found among the feces of ancient Greeks of Kea.»
Hippocrates in their Hippocratic Corpus already described the Syto more caused by these worms saying that caused weakness, vomiting, diarrhea, fatigue, fever and chills. That is, almost the same as any current doctor would tell us about the symptoms we would have if you had intestinal parasites.
This finding, therefore, has represented the confirmation that the medical theories described by Hippocrates and their assistants are quite close to reality and show the existence of parasites in very old times.
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