**2.1 Medicine in ancient times**

The history of documented medical practice and medical education goes back to ancient times of great empires of China, Babylon, Egypt, and India [1]. The ancient history of medicine informs us of the culture and the conceptualization of health, disease and illness that were prevalent at those times. Ancient Egyptians (3300–525 BCE) used prayers as solutions to health problems, and had natural, practical remedies such as herbs to cure their ill people [2]. In traditional Chinese culture, medicine is traced back to 14 and 11th century BCE. Treatment of illnesses had no logical mechanism and they did not have a concept of medicine as distinct from other fields. Ancient Babylonians medicine and culture revolved around magic, supernaturalism and the absence of scientific methods. In India, medicine was known as Ayurveda [3, 4]. Ayurveda is a Sanskrit term in which Ayur means life and veda means science. Physicians used to prescribe individualized herbs, diet and exercise along with lifestyle recommendations. Ayuerveda physicians believed in environmental factors or forces such as weather, diet, work, society, the economy, and lifestyle as influencing one's health – the state of mind, body and soul. In one of the more recent times of ancient medicine, stories of the well acknowledged Greek physician Hippocrates (400 BCE) became familiar in the medical arena. His ethical Oath and code for practicing doctors was originated and taught then and remains until today as a code that is recited in graduation ceremonies in schools of medicine across the globe [5].

## **2.2 The middle ages**

The Middle Ages have seen more formal recognition of medicine in Europe. Medicine was practiced as apprenticeship training in monasteries under the control of hospitals and churches. This period, 1220s, was the beginning of medical education where a medical school was established in Southern Italy and was followed by further expansion of medical education throughout Italy and Europe. Additionally, and during this period, medicine and medical education were growing in the Muslim world with more centers established in Baghdad, Cairo and Cordoba [6]. The Islamic Umayyad and Abbasid caliphate periods added further to western medicine by the translations of the works of Hippocrates and Galen. In fact, during

the medical Islamic period (900 C.E.), the medieval Islamic doctors in their communities recognized the roles of causes of illness and possible treatments and cures. This period demonstrated the rise of known medical scientists such as Al-Razi, Ibn al-Nafis and Ibn Sina (Avicenna) [7].
