🇫🇷 Version française · 🇪🇸 Español
🎃 Halloween special: play the Halloween quiz →
🎄 Christmas special: play the Christmas quiz →
🎆 New Year special: play the New Year quiz →
Free Ancient Medicine quiz: 67 trivia questions and answers — old remedies, trepanation & ayurveda. Easy to hard, with explained answers. No sign-up.
Start this quiz →🖨️ Printable version (20 questions + answers)
From Indian Ayurveda to medieval theriac, this quiz explores ancestral medical traditions and their remedies across continents. A fun way to test your knowledge of traditional medicine.
This quiz currently has 67 questions, ranging from easy to hard, available in French, English and Spanish when the Spanish translation is available.
Warm up before the quiz with these 13 trivia questions and their explained answers: click a question to reveal the answer.
Answer: The meridians. Qi circulates through a network of channels called meridians that run throughout the body.
Answer: The drum. The repetitive rhythm of the drum is used by shamans from many cultures to enter a trance state.
Answer: The transmutation of metals and the search for the elixir of long life. Alchemy aimed as much to heal the body as to perfect matter.
Answer: Diet adapted to one's constitution (Dosha). Ayurveda considers that each person needs specific foods to balance their doshas.
Answer: It is the main factor in healing. Most ancestral medicines consider that the mind heals the body.
Answer: Trepanation. Trepanned skulls dating back more than 7,000 years have been discovered; the practice probably aimed to release evil spirits.
Answer: Herbs and fragrant substances. People believed the disease spread through 'bad air'. The aromatics were supposed to filter out these miasmas… The role of rat fleas was not yet known.
Answer: The Charaka Samhita. The Charaka Samhita is one of the three principal texts of Ayurveda, dating from ancient India.
Answer: The Sumerians. Sumerian cuneiform texts already mention the use of willow bark to treat pain and fever.
Answer: The Incas. The Incas knew the fever-reducing properties of cinchona bark, later used to treat malaria.
Answer: Crucial for determining treatment timing. Physicians believed that the position of the stars influenced the organs and bodily fluids.
Answer: Ayurveda. Ayurveda has remained a complete and living system, still practised in traditional form in India.
Answer: Harpagophytum. Harpagophytum, native to southern Africa, has been used for centuries by the San and Khoikhoi peoples to treat joint pain.
54 more questions are waiting for you in the quiz!