The role of improving health and venturing to learn about medicine, over time, moved from the Egyptians, to the Greeks, to the Roman Empire.

The Greeks observed, recorded and then filed the patients, who they were, what happened to them and the outcome of the treatment which alot of people medics from. Historians now use them to see how far health has progressed. A book called the Hippocratic Writings can help out here for this history.