NAME: Francis Lloyd C. Mañago
YEAR AND SECTION: BSCE-2B
INSTRUCTOR: Bernie C. Palacio, LPT
Assignment No. 2
1. Trace the history of science in the following areas:
a. Mesoamerica
b. Asia
c. Middle east
d. Africa
Mesoamerica
As far as we know no major civilization developed in North America. Trade routes
existed across the entire continent, and some people developed an urban society, the most
prominent being the Anasazi. The Spanish invaders called them "Pueblo" (Spanish for "village"
or "town."). During the 11th - 14th centuries the Anasazi built large cities and religious centres
and must have had advanced division of labour. Indications for a similar society exist in the
lower Mississippi River region. But these societies went into decline before the arrival of the
Europeans, and when the Spanish arrived the Anasazi lived in small villages and were occupied
with subsistence agriculture.
Civilization in Meso-America (the region from Mexico to Guatemala, Belize and parts of
Honduras and El Salvador) began with the Olmec civilization that arose in north eastern Mexico
around 1150 BC. The Olmec were followed by the Zapotec, who established their capital Monte
Albán in central Mexico, and the civilization of Teotihuacán near today's Mexico City. Around
900 AD the Mixtec empire assimilated the Zapotec, and according to ancient American tradition
the Toltec established an empire shrouded in mystery around their capital Tollan (Tula).
Aztec
In 1325 the Aztec retreated to two small islands in Lake Texcoco and founded
Tenochtitlán. Over the next 200 years they extended the city into the lake and connected it to the
lake shore with causeways. When the Spanish arrived in 1519 their leader Hernán Cortés
considered Tenochtitlán "one of the most beautiful cities of the world." The city, its suburbs and
associated coastal settlements had a population of 400,000, the largest and densest concentration
of people in Meso-American history.
Aztecs evolved from a nomadic warrior community to one of the most advanced
civilizations in a few centuries. They remained the continent's most feared military force, but
they also assimilated many of the civilizations' achievements. Their towns had magnificent
architecture, and their goldsmiths and silversmiths became legendary.
Maya
The Maya civilization of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, Guatemala, and Belize was the
other great civilization in Meso-America. It developed sometime after 100 AD, vanished as a
political power between 600 and 900, was revitalized by migration from Mexico just before
1000, and remained the most advanced American civilisation until its annihilation by Spanish
invaders in the 16th century.
Chichén Itzá, a city of the Old Empire established in 455 and abandoned in 692, was the
only city to be reoccupied in 987. In 1441 its inhabitants left the city to the advancing Spanish
forces and retreated to the remote city of Tayasal in Lake Petén that had been abandoned for 600
years, where they could resist the European onslaught for another 200 years. Tayasal fell on 13
March 1697, 205 years after Columbus first set foot on American soil.
The Maya civilization, which grew over 1400 years, was well on its way to developing
real science and was the most sophisticated of all pre-Columbian civilizations in that regard. The
Maya, like the Olmec, Zapotec, and Mixtec, understood how to create paper and used a pictorial
script (often referred to as Maya hieroglyphs). This enabled the Maya to record all information
on long strips of paper, which they folded into books in the manner of a harmonica.
One of the three salvaged Maya texts, the Dresden Codex, is thought to have been created
in the 10th century. It attests to the sophisticated state of Maya astronomy by containing forecasts
of solar eclipses for millennia as well as a table of expected Venus locations. Maya cities had
observatories with libraries attached. The absence of astronomy instruments was solved by
aligning stars with two objects separated by a wide distance, a technique that produced high
angular precision. As a consequence, the Maya created the most precise calendar ever created.
The intellectual and scientific centre of the Maya empire was Copán in the extreme south;
cultural historians compared it with Athens and Alexandria. Copán's buildings and public places
are covered with pictographs, many still awaiting deciphering. Palenque, a city in the north-west
of the empire, was its spiritual centre.
There is no doubt that Maya science was still closely related to religion, similar to science in
ancient Egypt or in Greece before 600 BC. Thompson (1954) observed a change in Maya
building activity from religious to mainly secular architecture around 650 AD. Strangely enough
he took this as a sign of decline for the Maya civilization. But as we have seen in several other
civilizations, they all reach the point where science separates from religion, and it is not at all
clear why a declining influence of religion has to be seen as an indicator for the decline of
civilization. Whether Maya science made the step from being a branch of religion to becoming
an independent activity around 650 AD remains to be established. Maybe the pictorials of Copán
and Palenque hold the key.
The greatest scientific achievement of the Maya, the position-value number system with zero
(discussed in detail in Lecture 5), was a very early development. Date inscriptions found in
Monte Albán indicate that it goes back to a number system already used by the Zapotec. It was
adapted for use with the calendar that regulated all life in Maya society.
Inca
Tawantinsuyu, the Inca empire, grew into one of the world's greatest civilizations. Before
the Spanish destroyed it, it stretched approximately 3800 kilometers from Ecuador to Santiago de
Chile, covering sections of today's Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina. The Inca
monarch governed over around 20 million people who spoke at least 20 distinct languages from
his citadel Sacsayhuaman in the capital Cuzco. Two of these languages, Quechua and Aymara,
are still the primary and frequently sole language of more than 10 million Peruvian, Bolivian,
and Chilean people today.
Before about 1430 the Inca extracted tribute from others through raids. Beginning with
emperor Pachacuti they established permanent garrisons and administrative centres in all areas
under their control and promoted a new religion that justified their dominance. They expanded
the roads inherited from the Chincha into a road system of more than 23,000 km. As the
American civilizations did not know the wheel, the roads were constructed for pack animals and
pedestrians and provided a rapid communication system between the capital city and all parts of
the empire. A system of staged runners guaranteed that messages and orders were transmitted at
great speed; the distance between Cuzco and Quito at the northern end of the empire was covered
in less than five days, a speed that the European civilization could not match until more than four
centuries later (von Hagen, 1977).
It is difficult to estimate the progress of science in Inca civilization, but all indicators
point to the Inca having a long way to go in comparison to the Aztecs. There was no writing, and
all bookkeeping was done by tying knots in quipu fiber strings. Other textiles with patterned
patterns and symbols have yet to be deciphered; if they contain messages, they have yet to be
interpreted.
The character of Inca religion would also suggest that rational understanding of nature
had not advanced much. Divination, mostly by inspection of a llama's liver, was a prerequisite
for every action. Failure by an individual to observe the strict ritual was believed to inflict harm
on the community and required confession and penitence. Animal and human sacrifice was
common and not restricted to times of distress. The emperor's poncho (coat) was burnt as a
sacrifice to the sun each morning, and every month the priest in Cuzco sacrificed 100 llamas to
appease the sun.
Though the Inca could not compete with the Maya in science, their technology was ahead
of every other American society and allowed them to achieve the same high standard of
communal living as the Aztec empire through a totally different model. Inca society did not
know taxes or markets. Support for the common good took the form of regular annual work for
the state. Labor service (mit'a) could take various forms, from road construction to bridge
maintenance, work on the state's maize (corn) estates and textile production.
Asia
China
Europeans thought of themselves as technologically superior to others after 1500, but the
Chinese never agreed with this perspective until they observed firsthand the effects of the
industrial revolution on nineteenth century battlefields in East Asia. In contrast to China, where
natives remained in political control, the British colonial regime set the agenda for natural
studies in South Asia. British imperial power after 1700 dictated the terms of social, cultural, and
political interaction between natives and Westerners in India. New knowledge was in turn
ordered and classified according to the standards of authoritative British scientific practice.
Colonial forms of knowledge translated into reports, statistical records, histories, gazetteers,
legal codes, and encyclopedias that induced elites in India to become part of Britain’s project of
political and cultural control. Colonized natives acquired enough practical experience to
understand how to acquire, study, and interpret natural knowledge.
One of the ironies of the Qing misfortune in 1895 was that since the Song dynasty
(960–1280) China had at times supported a substantial navy, which the Mongols used to invade
Japan in 1274 and 1281, and to attack Java. Subsequently, the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) navy
under Admiral Zheng He (1371–1433) carried out several enormous excursions into Southeast
Asia and the Indian Ocean from 1403 to 1434, which ended when the court scrapped the navy in
the 1460s to prepare for possible land wars in the northwest against the resurgent Oirat Mongols.
9 A coastal navy equipped with cannon and firearms had defended the China coast from
Japanese pirates in the mid-sixteenth century, initially in vain but with eventual success. Chinese
naval power was further revived when the Ming helped Korea to halt Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s
(1536–1598) massive invasions of 1592 and 1598. Subsequently, Ming loyalists defeated the
Qing dynasty in their initial major naval and land battles along the Fujian coast. The naval
revival lasted only until the 1680s, however, when Qing naval forces finally annexed Taiwan.
Thereafter, Chinese still developed new types of sailing vessels, such as the Zhejiang junksfirst
built in 1699 for the Ningbo-Nagasaki trade between Japan and China, which lasted into the
eighteenth century despite Japan’s alleged but incomplete closed door policies. The Qing court in
the 1860s and we today might have heralded the revival of the Qing navy after the Opium wars
as a return to the brighter days of the early fifteenth, mid-sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries.
Instead, the late Qing navy was ridiculed after 1895. Anti-Manchu patriots pointed to the Zheng
He fleets as signs of China’s past greatness and current Manchu weakness. Moreover, the
superiority of Japan in modern technology and science was assumed after the Sino-Japanese War.
Indeed, the Manchu regime lost its political credibility among its Chinese majority because of
the war. The Japanese navy dominated Pacific waters until 1945. The possible continuity
between the military strength of the Ming and early Qing naval fleets and the late Qing navy
became inconceivable.
Fascinating as the colonial case of India is, early modern Chinese contested European
claims to scientific and religious superiority at every stage of their interaction after the 1580s.
One reason we have detailed accounts of conditions in Chinese prisons in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries, for instance, is that aggressive religious proselytizers from the
Augustinian, Dominican, Franciscan, and Jesuit orders prepared the accounts after the Ming
dynasty (1368–1644) locked up some of the clerics. In fact, Chinese and Manchus during the
Qing dynasty (1644–1911) induced Jesuit experts to work as imperial minions in the government
bureaucracy to augment their own projects of political and cultural control, using the latest
mathematical, astronomical, military, and surveying techniques. 7 It would be a historiographical
mistake to underestimate Chinese efforts to master the Western learning of the Jesuits in the
sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries
India
Indian literature provides us with considerable layered evidence related to the
development of science. The chronological time frame for this history is provided by the
archaeological record which has been traced in an unbroken tradition to about 7000 BC. Prior to
this we have records of rock paintings that are believed to be as old as 40000 BC. The earliest
textual source is the Rig Veda which is a compilation of very early material. There are
astronomical references in this and the other Vedic books which recall events in the third or the
fourth millennium BC and earlier. The recent discovery that Sarasvati, the preeminent river of
the Rig Vedic times, went dry around 1900 BC due to tectonic upheavals implies that the Rig
Veda is to be dated prior to this epoch. According to traditional history, Rig Veda is prior to 3100
BC.
Indian writing goes back to the beginning of the third millennium BC. The later historical
script called Brahmi evolved out of this writing. The invention of the symbol for zero appears to
have been made around 50 BC to 50 AD.
Briefly, the Vedic texts present a tripartite and recursive world view. The universe is
viewed as three regions of earth, space, and sky which in the human being are mirrored in the
physical body, the breath (prana), and mind.
In the Vedic world view, the processes in the sky, on earth, and within the mind are taken
to be connected. The Vedic seers were aware that all descriptions of the universe lead to logical
paradox. The one category transcending all oppositions was termed brahman. Understanding the
nature of consciousness was of paramount importance in this view but this did not mean that
other sciences were ignored. Vedic ritual was a symbolic retelling of this world view.
Knowledge was classified in two ways: the lower or dual; and the higher or unified. The
seemingly irreconcilable worlds of the material and the conscious were taken as aspects of the
same transcendental reality.
The idea of complementarity was at the basis of the systematization of Indian
philosophical traditions as well, so that complementary approaches were paired together. We
have the groups of: logic (Nyaya}) and physics (Vaisheshika), cosmology (Sankhya) and
psychology (Yoga), and language (Mimamsa) and reality (Vedanta). Although these
philosophical schools were formalized in the post-Vedic age, we find the basis of these ideas in
the Vedic texts.
The Sankhya and the Yoga systems take the mind as consisting of five components:
manas, ahankara, chitta, buddhi, and atman. Manas is the lower mind which collects sense
impressions. Ahankara is the sense of I-ness that associates some perceptions to a subjective and
personal experience. Once sensory impressions have been related to I-ness by ahankara, their
evaluation and resulting decisions are arrived at by buddhi, the intellect. Chitta is the memory
bank of the mind. These memories constitute the foundation on which the rest of the mind
operates. But chitta is not merely a passive instrument. The organization of the new impressions
throws up instinctual or primitive urges which creates different emotional states. This mental
complex surrounds the innermost aspect of consciousness, which is called atman, the self, or
brahman.
Indian archaeology and literature provide considerable layered evidence related to the
development of science. The chronological time frame for this history is provided by the
archaeological record that has been traced, in an unbroken tradition, to about 8000 BCE. Prior to
this date, there are records of rock paintings that are considerably older. The earliest textual
source is the Ṛgveda, which is a compilation of very ancient material. The astronomical
references in the Vedic books recall events of the third or the fourth millennium BCE and earlier.
The discovery that Sarasvati, the preeminent river of the Ṛgvedic times, went dry around 1900
BCE, if not earlier, suggests that portions of the Ṛgveda may be dated prior to this epoch.
Middle East
The Arabic contribution to science has been enormous. The growth of Islamic knowledge
reached its pinnacle between the eighth and sixteenth centuries, a period known as the Islamic
Golden Age. Arab scientists, writing in Arabic, made astounding discoveries that expanded
mankind's understanding of the natural world. Arabic scientific investigation thrived, yielding
key breakthroughs in mathematics, physics, astronomy, chemistry, medicine, and optics.
In their quest for scientific knowledge, Arab scientists of the 12th century conducted
experiments. They created and tested ideas using intuition, and they sought proof to validate their
theories. These tests were methodical, reproducible, and produced quantifiable results. These
procedures would come to be recognized as the contemporary scientific method.
Experimentation distinguished Arabic science from Greek science (which relied on theory and
conjecture rather than long-term experimentation). The current scientific process comprises
reasoning evidence, generating hypotheses, and conducting tests.
Ibn al-Haytham (965-1039) was a famous scientist during the Islamic Golden Age. He
was born in Basra, Iraq (then part of the Buyid Dynasty of Persia) and was known in the West by
his Latinized name, Alhazen. Ibn al-Haytham was a mathematician and engineer. He is known as
the "Father of Optics" since he established the principles of refraction first. His innovations
include the camera obscura and the pinhole camera. Ibn alHaytham is regarded as the father of
the modern scientific method because he urged that hypotheses be tested in practice.
Arab scientists also contributed to the advancement of medical knowledge. For example,
in the ninth century, the Persian physician Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi (known in Latin as
Rhazes) compiled a multi-volume encyclopedia of all known medical knowledge at the time. His
book on smallpox and measles was revolutionary. Razi had a significant impact on Western
medicine and is regarded as one of the Middle East's best scientists.
One of the Arabic contributions to mathematics is algebra. Muhammad ibn Musa
Al-Khawarzmi, a Persian polymath, is known as the "Father of Algebra '' since his work Algebra
was the first treatise on the systematic solution of linear and quadratic equations. The term
algebra is derived from a-jabr, one of the processes employed in his book to solve quadratic
problems. In addition, AlKhawarzmi pioneered the decimal positioning method in mathematics.
The parachute, hang-glider, eye glasses, artificial wings, soft beverages, fine glass,
contemporary soap, shampoo, kerosene, mechanical clocks, and programmed humanoid robot
are among the technological inventions ascribed to Arab scientists and engineers. Al-Jazari
(1136-1206), a prolific inventor and mechanical engineer of the Islamic Golden Age, is credited
with some of these innovations.
During the Islamic Golden Age, Baghdad's House of Wisdom was an important scientific
institution. As a translation and library institute, it translated many major foreign works of
science and philosophy into Arabic and Persian, enhancing Arab scientists and intellectuals. The
University of Al-Karaouine (also known as Qarawiyyin) in Fes, Morocco, was another renowned
intellectual institution. The university, founded in 859, is one of the key spiritual and educational
institutions of the Muslim world, as well as the oldest continually operating institution of higher
learning. The university is the "oldest extant educational institution in the world," according to
the Guinness Book of World Records, and its curriculum includes physics, arithmetic, rhetoric,
chemistry, medicine, and jurisprudence (among other subjects).
Africa
The place of Science and Technology in Africa has remained very disheartening since the
late 50s. Several factors have been figured out as reasons behind this under-development in
Africa. The researcher took a historical perspective in tracing the factors behind this problem. It
was discovered that the Ancient Africans were very notable in Science and Technology till the
late 40s. It was equally unveiled that most of the modern Western technologies were adopted and
learnt from the Ancient African scientists. The paper revealed that Africa hosted the first humans
on planet earth and that basic science and technology originated in Africa before the invasion of
African nations by the Europeans. The paper equally discovered that the Westerners purposefully
brain-drained the Africans with exchange of culture, force and deceit for religion and resource
control. The paper concluded with some key points that pervade the Westerners overriding
Africans, such as unstable government, poor leadership qualities, lack of respect for African
scientists and inferiority complex. Recommendations that can address this menace were
highlighted.
Although it is difficult to document Africa's pre-colonial history due to extreme lack of
documentation and structural design that the western continents of Europe and Asia are opulently
dense in, such as recording of verbal history, language history, archaeology and genetics which
are fundamental for cultural transfer. Nevertheless, the history of Africa is tied to the veneer of
hominids, antiquate humans about 400,000 years ago. Some of the ancient societies in Africa
consists of Ajuran Empire, D'mt, Adal Sultanate, War-sangali Sultanate, Kingdom of Nri, Nok
culture, Mali Empire, Songhai Empire, Benin Empire, Oyo Empire, Ashanti Empire, Ghana
Empire, Mossi Kingdoms, Mutapa Empire, Kingdom of Mapungubwe, Kingdom of Sine,
Kingdom of Sennar, Kingdom of Saloum, Kingdom of Baol, Kingdom of Cayor, Kingdom of
Zimbabwe, Kingdom of Kongo, Empire of Kaabu, Kingdom of Ile Ife, Ancient Carthage,
Numidia, Mauretania, and the Aksumite Empire etc. Prior to the European religion invasion and
colonialism, there were some estimates that Africa had almost 14,000 different states and
sovereign groups with distinctive languages and mores. According to paleontologists, the early
hominids' cranium anatomy was analogous to that of the gorilla, chimpanzee, and apes which
was believed to have firstly originated in Africa. However, it was also believed that the hominids
adopted a two ankle movement which untied their legs and hands. The movement enabled them
to live in both forest and open savanna areas. This controversial claim is said to have taken place
about 6 to 15 million years ago, against the opinion of biologists and heredities who stated that
human appearance could be traced to the last 60,000 to 300,000 years ago. The paleontologists
believed that major human body transformation surfaced within the last 4 million years ago, as
several australopithecine hominid species had developed all over the Southern, Eastern and
Central Africa, and by this period the hominids have become tool users, and manufacturer of
paraphernalia which enabled them to forage for smaller creatures (animals and plants) that
qualified humans as omnivores. Within the last 2 million years ago, some other human species
have emanated in the vestige documentation of Africa, such as Homo habilis, Homo ergaster,
Homo erectus, Homo floresiensis and Homo georgicus which was believed to be the first human
species that lived outside the territory of Africa. This era witnessed rapid growth in science and
technology with reference to the primordial pebble apparatus amongst others. If these historical
assertions are true, it therefore means that human existence and technology originated in the
African continents and that other continents are biological children of Africans.
Africans made the most primitive and the principal significant scientific inventions till
the Middle Ages. Right from the initial production of tools, the first discovery of fire, and the
early use of numbers were all initiated in Africa. The Africans discovered the production and use
of baskets and string about 600- 800,000 years ago and within the last100, 000 BC, the Africans
invented boats for marine transport. Through the use of boats, the great Africans explored
through the African seas to India, Australia, West Asia, Central Asia, Europe, China and
America. As early as 35,000 BC the Africans invented fish-hooks for fishing and tally sticks to
keep track of numbers. At about 25,000 years BC, the Africans invented bows and arrows to
hunt animals for food as well defense against external aggressions. Approximately 6000 BC,
African Sudanese built circles of standing stones that enabled them to measure astronomical
events in terms of seasonal change, while the Egyptians had diverse means of brewing beer from
grain. The Sudanese tamed donkeys as well discovered the cropping of millet and sorghum at
about 3000 BC while the Egyptians invented glass beads and the production of yeast bread
within the same period. African Women discovered and initiated the terracotta industry and smelt
iron about 400 BC. The Carthaginian metal-smiths of North Africa outlined how to blend
contemptible tin with copper to coat iron surface to enable it look polished and informed of silver
and gold.
The Africans were the foremost to establish a world renowned institution of higher
education, founded by Ptolemies in Alexandria in Egypt about 300 BC where ancient Egyptian
medical tradition was practiced by Herophilus and Erasistratos as pioneer doctors, including the
teaching of astronomy and mathematics. At about 200 years BC, Aristarchus discovered that
earth moves around the sun, while Erastothenes, a Libya born gem, calculated the circumference
of the earth in Alexandria, and its distance to the moon. Juba II and his wife Cleopatra Selene
both from Morocco, developed a psychological science theory of Elephants care behavior, they
noted that Elephants were of immense help to an injured colleague, forming defense as well
rendering outstanding measures to emendate the endangered colleague. They made very
enduring observations of the animal species, as the Elephant applied the fluids of aloe plant on
the wounds of injured Elephant and they stood behind the injured Elephant like healthcare
officers till the wounds are healed. The duos equally made efforts by sending explorers to the
Canary Atoll. During the Roman Empire, the Africans dominated the science community;
Ptolemy an Egyptian geographer was the first to portray the world atlas and he tried to explain
the movement of the planets. Within the same era, Hypatia the great mathematician developed
the geometry of cones and the effects of a cone when being traversed by a plane. The Africans
developed the three major world accepted types of calendars, in the order of: astral,
cosmological, and astrophysical. Although most states of Africa combined the three calendars
and other native calendars to form peculiar calendars like: Akan calendar, Egyptian calendar,
Berber calendar, Ethiopian calendar, Igbo calendar, Yoruba calendar, Shona calendar, Swahili
calendar, Xhosa calendar, Borana calendar, and Luba calendar. In addition, the Egyptians were
the first to detect the location of the star, which they later transformed and structured as the 24
hour per day, 7 days per week, 28, 29, 30 and 31 days per month, and 365-days, 12 month, per
year calendar.
As early as 75,000 BCE, South Africa and other African countries like Congo DR
manufactured a mathematical artifact with Lacombe bone, within 18,000 to 20,000 BCE, Congo
improved on the tool, by adding stick tally and marks. The product was encrypted with
engraving and writing buttons. The machine made it possible for multiplication, addition,
division, and subtractions, the machine made all forms of calculations faster and possible, it was
suggested that the machine could be the brainchild of African women who kept track of their
menstrual orb; this could mark the beginning of calculators and computer technology. The
ancient Egyptians also showed great performance in the four fundamental arithmetic procedures
being addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division and the use of fractions, by devising the
formula of computing the volume of a frustum, and the techniques of calculating the surface
areas of triangles, circles and hemispheres. They understood basic concepts of algebra and
geometry, and were able to solve simple sets of simultaneous and algebraic equations.
Metallurgy Between 1500 to 2500 BCE, Sub-Saharan Africans moved from Stone age to Iron
age, although the Iron age was instantaneous with the Bronze era. However the bronze
technology was mimicked from the Near Eastern know-how. The Africans used Iron to produce
coins as money, war-weapons, blast smiths, ore and wax were all byproducts of the Iron and
Bronze Age.
The Africans discovered two types of iron furnaces used in Sub-Saharan Africa: the
trench beneath earth and spherical clay structures built over soil. Iron ores were crushed and
placed in furnaces encrusted with the right portion of hardwood. A flux such as emerald
sometimes from seashells was supplementary to aid in smelting. They used bellows by the side
to add oxygen, while clay pipes were placed by the sides to direct the oxygen surge. Medicine
Mostly the West Africans were very notable in traditional medicine, their knowledge of
inoculating oneself against measles more specifically the Igbo, Ogba and Yoruba tribes have also
been acknowledged with a high level skill of bone setting. Beriberi and torrent ailments were
traced to have originated in Africa, with reasonable skills of treatment. The ancient Egyptian
physicians were renowned in the ancient days within the East for their healing skills; most
Egyptians instituted professionalization in medical field; such as head, abdomen, sight and teeth
doctors.
The Egyptians showed significant empirical knowledge of anatomy and practical
treatment of injuries. Some of the medical apparatus were improvised during treatment, as raw
animal protein was used in place of bandage, sutures, nets, white linen, pads and swabs drenched
with honey was used in place of antiseptics and antibiotics to prevent infection, while opium was
used to lessen ache. Bitter kola, onions and garlic were used regularly to prop up good health;
they equally believed that the features also help in relieving bronchial symptoms. The ancient
Egyptian medical doctors’ suture wounds, set broken bones, and sever diseased limbs; however
they acknowledged that some injuries were so somber that they could only make the patient
contented until death. Within 800 BC, the first psychiatric infirmary and insane sanctuary was
established in Cairo, Egypt and about 1100 BC ventilator was also invented in the same Egypt.
2. How are science-related contributions lead to the development of modern science?
Science-related contributions are the root of modern science in today's modern world.
Without all the science-related contributions we cannot come up with new discoveries, with the
help of those contributions the science and technology has evolved into such a great achievement
for mankind. What we have right now is because of all the science-related contributions that
have been passed through generations to come up with new discoveries.