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Like their prehistoric ancestors, the people of early civilizations lived related to the supernatural. Facing life-threatening situations, such as illness and death, people of ancient civilizations resorted to divination, prophecy, or the oracle. Regarding the curative activities of the ancient Greek civilization, there was a period in which these processes were exclusively linked to a supernatural perspective of the origin of disease. This stage of development of Greek healing practices corresponds to what might be called pre-Hippocratic Greek medicine. In ancient Greek civilization, myths exerted a strong influence on the concepts of disease and the healing processes. Although the first divine figure of Greek mythology related to medicine was Paeon, healing cults related to Apollo and Asclepius had a higher importance in tradition and Greek mythology. The Apollonian divine healing consisted in the ability to eliminate chaos and keep away evil, while in the Asclepian perspective, the role of healer was linked to specific procedures. Personal and medical skills allowed Asclepius to surpass his father and achieve his final consecration as a god of medicine.

The beginnings of the magical-religious conception of disease would go back to before the development of writing (prehistory). During ancient times the world was conceived as a place where the supernatural was essential for mankind's survival, therefore, explanations of all phenomena, including disease, were based on supernatural causes. With the development of Greek civilization began the establishment of a rational approach to the nature of the world, which gradually included medicine. But the origin of the rational and naturalist perspective of medicine is due in part to the influence of ancient Egyptian civilization. Various terms were used to refer to healing agents at the pre-Hippocratic period of ancient Greece: iatromantis, phôlarcos, ouliads, and asclepiads. Later, in the ancient Greek civilization, healing through prophecy was gradually replaced, though not entirely displaced, by a new medicine, based on a rational theoretical framework about health and disease: téchnê iatrikê.