Ayurveda speaks of eight branches: kayachikitsa (internal medicine), shalyachikitsa (surgery including anatomy), shalakyachikitsa (eye, ear, nose and throat diseases), kaumarabhritya (pediatrics), bhutavidya (phychiatry or demonology), agada tantra (toxicology), rasayana (science of rejuvenation) and vajikarana ( the science of fertility).

Before graduation, the student was to pass a test. But the physician was to continue to learn through texts, direct observation (pratyaksha) and through inference (anumana).

In 2001, archeologists studying the remains of two men from Mehgarh, Pakistan, made the discovery that the people of Indus Valley Civilization, even from the early Harappan periods (circa 3,300 B.C), had knowledge of medicine and dentistry.

The physical anthropologist who carried out the examinitions, Professor Andrea Cucina from the University of Missouri-Columbia, made the discovery when he was cleaning the teeth from one of the men.

Chinese Medicine

Chinese also developed a large body of traditional medicine. Much of the philosophy of traditional Chinese medicine derived from empirical observations of disease and illness by Taoist physicians and reflects the classical Chinese belief that individual human experiences express causative principles effective in the environment at all scales.

During the golden age of his reign from 2,696 to 2,598 B.C, as a result of a dialogue with his minister, Ch’I Pai, the Yellow Emperor is supposed by Chinese tradition to have composed his Neijing Suwen or Basic Questions of Internal Medicine.

During the Han dynasty, Chang Chung-Ching, who was mayor of Chang-sha near the end of the second century A.D, wrote a Treatise on Typhoid Fever, which contains the earliest known reference to Neijing Suwen.

The Chin dynasty practitioner and advocate of acupuncture and moxibustion, Huang-fu Mi (215-282 A.D), also quotes the Yellow Emperor in his Chia I Ching, 265 A.D.

During the Tang dynasty, Wang Ping claimed to have located a copy of the originals of the Neijing Suwen, which he expanded and edited substancially.

Early European Medicine

Astrology played a very important part in early Western medicine; most university-educated physicians were trained in at least the basics of astrology to use in their practice. As societies developed in Europe and Asia, belief systems were replaced with a different natural system.