Short answers, pulled from the story.
Ötzi the Iceman carried a deliberate medical kit containing Piptoporus betulinus, poppy seeds, sloe berries, and sphagnum moss. This toolkit included a birch polypore fungus used as a vermifuge and antibiotic, poppy seeds as an analgesic, and sphagnum moss as an antiseptic wound dressing. The discovery reveals sophisticated self-medication practices from 3230 BCE.
The Babylonian Diagnostic Handbook was written by the chief scholar Esagil-kin-apli of Borsippa in the middle of the 11th century BCE. This text represents one of the earliest attempts to systematize diagnosis and prognosis during the reign of King Adad-apla-iddina. It combined empirical observations with theories of elements, magic, and religion to explain disease.
Hippocrates of Kos lived during the 5th century BCE and systematized the theory of humors. He and his students described the four humors as blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile, linking them to the four seasons and the four ages of man. This theory dominated Western medicine until the 19th century.
The first Islamic Hospital was created in 805 CE by the Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid in Baghdad. This institution provided educational opportunities for physicians and introduced concepts such as separate wards for male and female patients, pharmacies, and medical record-keeping. It served as a model for developing medical knowledge among students and teachers from a range of cultures.
Andreas Vesalius published De humani corporis fabrica in 1543 to challenge Galen's authority. This work portrayed the human body as an interdependent system of organ groupings and triggered great public interest in dissections. The University of Padua began teaching medicine in 1222 and played a leading role in the identification and treatment of diseases through autopsies.
Louis Pasteur confirmed Theodor Schwann's fermentation experiments in 1857 and suggested that such a process might explain contagious disease. In 1860, Pasteur's report on bacterial fermentation of butyric acid motivated Casimir Davaine to identify a species as the pathogen of anthrax. Pasteur's group later introduced the rabies vaccine, the first vaccine for humans since Jenner's for smallpox.