It’s hard to believe that modern Western doctors, with their multimillion-dollar hospitals and high-tech gadgets, have much in common with their ancient counterparts. Up to the 19th century, doctors usually occupied a fairly low status in society. Doctors these days generally enjoy better working conditions, but the basic rules guiding their style, dress, and decorum have remained surprisingly static for the past 2,500 years.

Physicians’ appearance has been the most closely monitored of any professional class in history, aside from the police and the military. (It’s probably not a coincidence that all three deal with life and death.) In ancient Greece, medical encounters took place in public; even in the home, there were usually onlookers. Hospitals as we know them didn’t exist until the first Muslim-built bimaristan in Baghdad during the 9th century CE. Because there were so often spectators, some flourish was expected. Apparently, Greek doctors in ancient times really got into character, necessitating one author to warn against “luxurious headgear and elaborate perfumes in order to gain patients... for excess of strangeness will win you ill-repute, but a little will be considered good taste.”

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