Civilizations & Traditions

Explore Aztec medicine through Nahua practitioners, botanical knowledge, surgery, ritual, colonial manuscripts, and the limits of surviving evidence.

What archaeology, classical observers, medieval Irish texts, healing sites, and later folklore can—and cannot—tell us about Celtic medicine.

A nuanced history of medicine in the medieval Islamic world, including translation, hospitals, pharmacy, physicians, and cross-cultural transmission.

Trace Ayurveda from its early Sanskrit medical literature through changing theories, institutions, colonial encounters, and modern regulation.

A focused history of Babylonian medical diagnosis, asu and ashipu healers, cuneiform scholarship, prognosis, and medical law.

How Mesopotamian healers used cuneiform texts, observation, remedies, incantations, and prognosis across Sumerian, Babylonian, and Assyrian history.