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How much was known about human anatomy during biblical times?
Did people in that era understand the functions of various organs? Did they know how many organs in the body? What was the biblical era perception of how a baby got into the mother's womb? What was considered to be the cause of malfunctions and disorders?
Certainly they must have understood that sex is the cause of pregnancy but I'm sure they didn't have any grasp of the functions the various organs and how they interacted. Of course there was no knowledge of microscopic life such as viruses and other microbes that cause disease. People came up with all sorts of crazy explanations as to why people were getting sick even a few hundred years ago. Getting back to the pregnancy question, now that I think about it the story of the Virgin Mary reveals that they must have known that a virgin who'd never had sex wouldn't get pregnant and their belief that Mary became pregnant from God explains that they did understand the basic function of sex and that a mother and father are needed to cause a pregnancy.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Visvaldis
How much was known about human anatomy during biblical times?
Did people in that era understand the functions of various organs? Did they know how many organs in the body? What was the biblical era perception of how a baby got into the mother's womb? What was considered to be the cause of malfunctions and disorders?
i guess it depends on how back in time you want to go as biblical the biblical timeline is huge!!! and it also depends on which civilization
Certainly they must have understood that sex is the cause of pregnancy but I'm sure they didn't have any grasp of the functions the various organs and how they interacted. Of course there was no knowledge of microscopic life such as viruses and other microbes that cause disease. People came up with all sorts of crazy explanations as to why people were getting sick even a few hundred years ago. Getting back to the pregnancy question, now that I think about it the story of the Virgin Mary reveals that they must have known that a virgin who'd never had sex wouldn't get pregnant and their belief that Mary became pregnant from God explains that they did understand the basic function of sex and that a mother and father are needed to cause a pregnancy.
Interesting post. I just wonder how could people in those time know about viruses without the aid of microscopes. Weren't many diseases and disorders thought to be demonic possessions?
As I recall it was Leonardo DaVinci who pioneered human anatomy by dissecting bodies, although he did it for artistic knowledge of anatomy. That was in the 15th century.
My purpose for starting this thread is because I think the bible was written with the extent of knowledge at hand. I doubt if anyone knew exactly what the heart does, how a brain functions, the purpose of the liver, kidneys, etc.
I think some of these misconceptions have been carried over to this day.
well the big man at the time of the romans(and up to a millenia afterwards) was a man called galen. His work on anatomy was used all around greece and rome but it wasn't very good. You see for people to understand how bodies look like and work, they need to dissect them. Religious and traditional views limited this however(fiddling with dead bodies could be punishable by death in quite a few places you see). His solution was to dissect animals such as pigs leading to some funny inaccuracies. It wasn't until a man called Vesalius came along in the 16th century that accurate illustrations of human anatomy came about. Vesalius was allowed to inspect dead human bodies and had a team of artists who could draw really nice looking pictures of say muscles for example
http://students.ou.edu/Y/Jason.S.Yousif-1/Galen_System1.jpg (broken link)
Galen
Im not too sure about the knowledge of the functions of organs around those times, its a wonder I remembered the names Galen and Vesalius since its been 5 years from when I studied them in history.
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Egyptians had a pretty extensive knowledge of human anatomy...and going back a long ways people understood WHAT was there but not really HOW things worked. With no microscopes or othe means of investigating the tiny bits of us that make us work, it was impossible. No one knew about or even began to understand germs and viruses until the mid-1800's, when someone in a maternity-based hospital decided thay would be better off with patients if they just washed their hands.
They did not know about germs or germ theory. They were working off the 4 humors theory. By 2000 years ago, much of what the Egyptians knew had already been lost. Most of the medicine was from Aristotle's theories. If you had an imbalance of the humors, that was a cause of the disease so treatment was in trying to get the humors back into balance. Sometimes successful but not very effective against smallpox. Aristotle had a bunch of wacky theories based on his thought exercises - no actual science or experimentation to verify any of it. That held sway throughout the middle ages until the Renaissance when they actually started the beginnings of science and experimentation to validate hypotheses.
All patriarchal societies knew that the man's sperm was needed to "plant" the baby. That's why they created the societies to enslave women in an attempt to guarantee the father. Many were so full of themselves and misogynist that they believed only the sperm contributed to the baby - all the woman was is a vessel to carry the baby.
If you go back to the original bible 2600 years ago, much less was known as they were fairly ignorant people. Mostly it was folk medicine - herbs and rudimentary first aid. They still knew that the man was required to create a baby but didn't have a good understanding of the woman's role. The Egyptians of that era knew quite a bit more, but that wasn't transplanted to the peoples of Palestine. From butchery, they knew of the organs, but not necessarily what their functions were. They thought the heart contained all emotion for example - not the brain.
I don't think that grave robbing and dissecting corpses would be accepted by the early Jews and early Christians.
I guess it all changed with Leonardo da Vinci.
Quote:
As a successful artist, he [da Vinci] was given permission to dissect human corpses at the hospital Santa Maria Nuova in Florence and later at hospitals in Milan and Rome. From 1510 to 1511 he collaborated in his studies with the doctor Marcantonio della Torre and together they prepared a theoretical work on anatomy for which Leonardo made more than 200 drawings. It was published only in 1680 (161 years after his death) under the heading Treatise on painting.
Leonardo drew many studies of the human skeleton and its parts, as well as muscles and sinews, the heart and vascular system, the sex organs, and other internal organs. He made one of the first scientific drawings of a fetus in utero
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Nice
I don't think that grave robbing and dissecting corpses would be accepted by the early Jews and early Christians.
