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Also medicine and magic used to be synonymous until quite recently. See for example the American Indian medicine men.

by User23 6y ago

ARandomerDude 6y ago
American Indians and Europeans have/had radically different cultures. "Magic" and "medicine" have been distinct for thousands of years in Europe.
- lioeters 6y ago
  > "Magic" and "medicine" have been distinct for thousands of years in Europe. Medicine and magic have been intertwined throughout human history, all over the world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materia_medica https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materia_medica
  - yesenadam 6y ago
    Not sure why you linked to that page, as it doesn't mention magic at all, unless I missed it, apart from this in the first paragraph: "The Ebers papyrus is an ancient recipe book dated to approximately 1552 BC. It contains a mixture of magic and medicine with invocations to banish disease and a catalogue of useful plants, minerals, magic amulets and spells." Materia medica was the old term for what is now pharmacology.
    - simonh 6y ago
      There's also this bit on Egyptian medicine: "It contains a mixture of magic and medicine with invocations to banish disease and a catalogue of useful plants, minerals, magic amulets and spells." So it doesn't, except when it does. I'd also argue a lot of medicine employed 'magical thinking' such as efficacy from similarity. Herbs were recommended based on their physical similarity to organs or parts of the body. I don't think it's pejorative of early practitioners to point this out. Until empiricism and experimentalism there was no way to reliably clarify what worked and why.
      - yesenadam 6y ago
        > There's also this bit on Egyptian medicine: > "It contains a mixture of magic and medicine with invocations to banish disease and a catalogue of useful plants, minerals, magic amulets and spells." The sentence you seem to be saying I missed is one of the two I quoted. > So it doesn't, except when it does. Please don't do that on HN.
thaumasiotes 6y ago
> Also medicine and magic used to be synonymous until quite recently. Not at all. Under Roman law, "magic" was forbidden, and healing magic was considered "not magic" precisely because it was helpful instead of harmful. (As we can see by the fact that people wrote about the question at all, they were well aware of the conceptual similarity.) Compare WWII terminology in which the difference between a submarine and a U-boat is that the submarine is good and the U-boat is evil.
- Nasrudith 6y ago
  Really they all seem to have had roughly common roots and then engaged in speciation over time by culture. "Witch" essentially meaning poisioner or "bad pharmacology/herbalism" ans posioned and cursed as essentially synonymous. Given that dose and application make the poison this ends up being a very dangerous look for any herbalist even before any cynical power grabs because they would always look guilty of carrying poison even if the foxglove was to steady the heartbeat instead of stopping it. The split from Philosopher to Natural Philosopher which later split to Scientest and Philosophy of Science essentially are a more "modern" version of the same process.

Also medicine and magic used to be synonymous until quite recently. See for example the American Indian medicine men.

by User23 6y ago

Also medicine and magic used to be synonymous until quite recently. See for example the American Indian medicine men.

American Indians and Europeans have/had radically different cultures. "Magic" and "medicine" have been distinct for thousands of years in Europe.

lioeters 6y ago
> "Magic" and "medicine" have been distinct for thousands of years in Europe. Medicine and magic have been intertwined throughout human history, all over the world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materia_medica https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materia_medica
- yesenadam 6y ago
  Not sure why you linked to that page, as it doesn't mention magic at all, unless I missed it, apart from this in the first paragraph: "The Ebers papyrus is an ancient recipe book dated to approximately 1552 BC. It contains a mixture of magic and medicine with invocations to banish disease and a catalogue of useful plants, minerals, magic amulets and spells." Materia medica was the old term for what is now pharmacology.
  - simonh 6y ago
    There's also this bit on Egyptian medicine: "It contains a mixture of magic and medicine with invocations to banish disease and a catalogue of useful plants, minerals, magic amulets and spells." So it doesn't, except when it does. I'd also argue a lot of medicine employed 'magical thinking' such as efficacy from similarity. Herbs were recommended based on their physical similarity to organs or parts of the body. I don't think it's pejorative of early practitioners to point this out. Until empiricism and experimentalism there was no way to reliably clarify what worked and why.
    - yesenadam 6y ago
      > There's also this bit on Egyptian medicine: > "It contains a mixture of magic and medicine with invocations to banish disease and a catalogue of useful plants, minerals, magic amulets and spells." The sentence you seem to be saying I missed is one of the two I quoted. > So it doesn't, except when it does. Please don't do that on HN.

thaumasiotes 6y ago

> Also medicine and magic used to be synonymous until quite recently. Not at all. Under Roman law, "magic" was forbidden, and healing magic was considered "not magic" precisely because it was helpful instead of harmful. (As we can see by the fact that people wrote about the question at all, they were well aware of the conceptual similarity.) Compare WWII terminology in which the difference between a submarine and a U-boat is that the submarine is good and the U-boat is evil.

Nasrudith 6y ago
Really they all seem to have had roughly common roots and then engaged in speciation over time by culture. "Witch" essentially meaning poisioner or "bad pharmacology/herbalism" ans posioned and cursed as essentially synonymous. Given that dose and application make the poison this ends up being a very dangerous look for any herbalist even before any cynical power grabs because they would always look guilty of carrying poison even if the foxglove was to steady the heartbeat instead of stopping it. The split from Philosopher to Natural Philosopher which later split to Scientest and Philosophy of Science essentially are a more "modern" version of the same process.