In this brief, yet clear, narrative of medical history, initially a keynote speech at the First Mediterranean Medical Meeting held in Heraklion in September 198), Professor Spyros Vryonis, a specialist in the history of Byzantium and the Middle East, offers a fascinating overview of the achievements (and weaknesses) of the ancient medical schools - Egyptian, Hippocratic, Galenic, etc. - as well as the adoption and crystallization of ancient doctrines in the medical centers of the Byzantine and Arab worlds, leading to their introduction, via Arab Africa and Spain, into medieval Europe, and through Italy into Renaissance Europe, ultimately being replaced by modern scientific observation and practice.