ABSTRACT
It is evident that at the beginning of the world mankind was obliged to consider the question of Medicine, but centuries rolled by before Medicine became a profession. A person who had experimented upon himself or on others would repeat the experiment upon similar occasions, and communicate his results to friends and neighbours. Herodotus tells us that the Babylonians did this in his day, and that they placed patients in the public places (for they had no physicians) in order that the passers-by who saw them could give advice and encourage them to practise what they or others had successfully done in similar cases. Herodotus also adds that nobody could pass by these patients without inquiring into the nature of their disease. Strabo says the same thing of the Babylonians, Portuguese and Egyptians. The Portuguese, he says, following an ancient custom of the Egyptians, placed their patients in the streets or on the highways, in order that any passer-by, who had suffered from the same affection, might give advice.
