Ancient history of heart disease

The evolution of knowledge of the heart and its function may be traced from manuscripts written in the early days of the Greek Empire several hundred years before Christ.

Descriptions of heart failure exist from ancient Egypt, Greece, and India, and the Romans were known to use the foxglove as medicine.

Ebers papyrus written in 1552 BC besides containing incantations also mentioned about heart failure diagnosis. The papyrus is largely composed of a series of glosses explaining term used to describe pathological states of the heart.

Aristotle, the Greek philosopher tells (384-322 BC) that the animals were frequently observed to have diseased hearts when they were cut open, and heart disease must have occurred in humans as well.

Galen of Pergamon (129-200 AD) made the first known used of the pulse to diagnose a patient. He wrote that the heart and all the arteries pulsate with same rhythm.

The term for a heart attack is myocardial infarction, from ancient Greek and Latin: myo and cardia, for “muscle” and “heart” and infarct, for “death”.

Little understanding of the nature of the condition can have existed until William Harvey described the circulation in 1628.
Ancient history of heart disease