Citing from Egyptian papyri, John F. Nunn identified significant knowledge of gastrointestinal diseases among practicing physicians during the periods of the pharaohs. Irynakhty, of the tenth dynasty, c. 2125 B.C., was a court physician specializing in gastroenterology, sleeping, and proctology.

Among ancient Greeks, Hippocrates attributed digestion to concoction. Galen’s concept of the stomach having four faculties was widely accepted up to modernity in the seventeenth century.