What Did Ancient Humans Do When They Got Sick?

What did ancient humans do when they got sick? No doctors. No pills. Nobody knew what a germ was. So what happened when someone got sick 40,000 years ago? From a sick chimpanzee chewing bitter leaves, to a Neanderthal's "medicine cabinet" hidden in his teeth, to the oldest known amputation, this is the story of how ancient humans survived pain, injury and illness, and why the most powerful medicine was never made of plants. CHAPTERS 0:00 What If You Got Sick 40,000 Years Ago? 1:12 The Real Threat Wasn't Lions 2:39 The Animals Knew First 4:46 A Neanderthal's Medicine Cabinet 6:21 Nobody Gets Left Behind 7:54 The First Surgery 10:25 The Medicine You Can't Dig Up 11:38 What It Was Really About SOURCES • Huffman & Seifu (1989), Primates 30: 51–63. Chimpanzee self-medication with Vernonia amygdalina https://www.wrc.kyoto-u.ac.jp/en/memb... • Laumer et al. (2024), Scientific Reports 14: 8932. Orangutan treating a wound with a medicinal plant https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/5... • Mascaro et al. (2022), Current Biology. Chimpanzees applying insects to wounds https://www.aip.org/inside-science/ch... • Weyrich et al. (2017), Nature 544: 357–361. Neanderthal dental plaque DNA (El Sidrón) https://news.liverpool.ac.uk/2017/03/... • Trinkaus & Villotte (2017), PLOS ONE. Shanidar 1 and hearing loss https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.... • Maloney et al. (2022), Nature 609: 547–551. Oldest known amputation, Liang Tebo, Borneo https://www.uwa.edu.au/news/Article/2... • Alt et al. (1997), Nature 387: 360. Healed trepanation, Ensisheim, France https://archive.archaeology.org/9709/... • Katz (1982), Boiling Energy: Community Healing Among the Kalahari Kung. Harvard University Press This video is for education only. It is not medical advice. Please don't treat yourself with plants or mould. Script researched and fact-checked against the studies above. Illustrations made with AI-assisted tools. #history #anthropology #ancienthumans