La figura del médico

The figure of the doctor: myth, history and artistic inspiration

To begin with, medicine was first placed in the hands of shamans and “enlightened” men. Little by little, science applied scientific protocols and proven ethics.

BY Enric Ros | 03 July 2025

There was a time when medicine had close links to magic and even to religion. Shamans, witchdoctors, priests, animists, enlightened people of all kinds… all of them were figures who claimed to accumulate knowledge, often hermetic or semi-divine power; who knew – or said they knew, secrets to prepare ointments or substances from animals, minerals or plants with alleged healing functions.


The role that they fulfilled in ancient societies was, in spite of everything, essential: helping human beings to fight against disease and death, in times when there were more uncertainties than answers about how our bodies worked. To do this, they used two sources of knowledge: empirical observation and mystic-religious beliefs.
 

Imhotep, the Egyptian

Imhotep is the first doctor that we probably know about; an Egyptian who lived between the years 2686 and 2613 BC and who was also Prime Minister, as well as an architect. His healing skills turned him into the god of medicine. His figure was the inspiration behind the Greek god Asclepius.


Originally, the Greek god of medicine was Apollo or Alexicacus, ‘he who averts evil,’ to whom the Oracle of Delphos was dedicated. Some of his most famous “suggestions” – such as the one stating “Nothing in excess” may still be shared by modern doctors today. Apollo was in charge of training the centaur Chiron, who in turn educated several Greek heroes, amongst them, Asclepius. This legendary tale introduced another interesting idea: medicine, in spite of its apparently magical roots, was considered to be knowledge that could be transmitted from one person to another.

 

Towards scientific medicine

As explained by Juan Jaramillo Antillón in his interesting book Historia y Filosofía de la Medicina (History and Philosophy of Medicine) , little by little “medicine modelled the scientific spirit and dissipated the accumulation of existing beliefs and superstitions […] about diseases by revealing the knowledge of the human body and the deficiencies that occurred within it.”

Aristotle affirmed that scientific knowledge sought to know with certainty the why and wherefore behind the way a thing is as it is. This necessarily implies going back to the so-called necessary causes. Aristotle’s’ view of science discerned the existence of speculative sciences, which sought knowledge for itself, such as physics or mathematics and productive sciences, aimed at obtaining practical or beneficial results for our lives, such as architecture or medicine.

In this way, it moved on from a mythical reasoning, based on stories and symbolism, such as animism (which considered that invisible beings were behind the causes of death and disease) to another more rational thinking, consisting in the analysis of the facts and the search for scientific truth through some protocols. It was not an easy process, and over history the temptation to be led by deceit frequently re-appeared.

 

The first ‘scientific’ doctor

The start of scientific medicine is obviously linked to the figure of Hippocrates, the Greek who gave this practice its ethical scope. One of the many achievements attributed to him was the liberation of Athens from the plague by incinerating the dead and their clothing in bonfires.


Although he believed in ideas that today are inconceivable, such as the famous ‘humours’ or liquids that according to him the organism contained, as indicated by Juan Jaramillo, Hippocrates was responsible for creating what we today call clinical preparation, identifying the basic principles: inspection of the patient by observation and interrogation, as well as the systemised description of the diseases in order to help with the preparation of the disease pattern. This was a first giant step towards the professionalisation of the medical activity. 

Historia de la medicina
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