By Anne Frehill

In the past couple of years, experts have warned that mosquito-borne diseases are set to spread across currently unaffected parts of North America, northern Europe, Asia and Australia due to climate crisis. They name illnesses such as malaria and dengue fever. Diseases that are normally more common in tropical and subtropical climates.

Since the worldwide spread of the dreaded coronavirus and its many mutations, I am acutely aware of how fortunate we are to live in an era when medicine has become so advanced. And it’s thanks to the dedication, brilliance and persistence of pioneers in the fields of science and medicine.

These range from the earliest Greek physicians, philosophers and practitioners of the art of healing, to scientists from the beginning of the seventeenth century right down to the present day.

In primitive and prehistoric cultures, the first medicine men were more like witchdoctors or conjurers of sorcery! Many believed that illness was a punishment for sins either in the present lifetime or in a previous reincarnation. While others saw illness as a possession by devils.
The so-called treatment meted out to these poor individuals was often worse than the disease itself.

Aside from potions and poultices, patients were sometimes subjected to drastic purges, starvation for days or bloodletting almost to the point of death.
While many of these practitioners did so in good faith, eager to relieve suffering, there were also charlatans who tried to bedazzle patients with spells and charms.

Hippocrates, a Greek physician is often called the father of modern medicine. It is astonishing to discover that over 400 years before Christ, he was both a practitioner and teacher of everything relating to healing. He was just one of a group of physicians and thinkers who helped to differentiate between medicine and sheer magic. They thoroughly researched and recorded all matters relating to illness: symptoms, causes and responses to treatment. This marked a turning point where each affliction was seen as having a physical cause rather than some punishment handed down by the Gods.

Soon early Christians devoted their lives to caring for the sick and the infirm – as Jesus himself had shown them. By the Middle Ages, all over Europe monasteries and convents became synonymous with hospitals and care centres for the sick and dying.

For centuries in Ireland, believers flocked to Holy Wells associated with saints and legends. These were said to have healing properties for a range of afflictions from ringworm to epilepsy. Some of these wells still attract annual pilgrims.

One of the most ground-breaking advances in medicine was that relating to inoculation. For thousands of years, the dreaded smallpox virus had wreaked havoc on humans across the world. It is believed that from at least 300 to 400 years before Christ, it was known that those few lucky enough to survive the deadly disease, became immune to it. However, it had not been discovered why this was so.
There are claims that inoculation began in the middle of the 16th century, in China and India.

While other reports say that it was invented by the Arabs long before 1550. Then spread along trade routes through Africa and the Middle East to reach India.

It was during the 17th century that inoculation arrived in parts of the Ottoman Empire followed by parts of Europe.

Continue reading in this week’s Ireland’s Own