How long have doctors been around and can anyone tell me how medical science started?

[Tylor Lothar]

How long has the science of medicine existed. Does anyone know the history of medical science or how I can find out? I have tried to google it and maybe I am not using the right words.

[Chacmool]

Try the Wikipedia article on medicine.

[Phebe]

The problem with that article, good though it is, is that it doesn't give reference at all to Imhotep (the man who built the first pyramid), who is actually considered the 'founder of medicine'. It's said that Hippocrates actually studied from his writings from a papyrus text called the Edwin Smith Papyrus.

Egyptologists have found evidence of the earliest brain surgery done, and this man lived around 5000 years ago. It's also believed he developed the practice of setting broken bones as opposed to chopping off the offending limbs.