Medicine cards

People thought spirits were the cause of sickness, every person had their own spirit which caused them pain.

The medicine man was who treated the sick. He chanted, sung and massaged the sore or the place that was 'sick' and asked the spirit to come out.

He would bring the sick out of a trance and tell them the spirit had gone, and so people believed they were not ill anymore.

The egyptions believed the cause of the disease was the 'theory of the channels', this theory was evolved from people watching the irrigation channels. when they were blocked crops would start to dry up and die.

Egyptions believed the body worked in the same way as this. For example if you had a headache the Egyptions believed it was a channel to your head that was blocked.

People who were sick were treated by the goddess Sekhmet or doctors and priest.

Mumification gave an Egyption doctors an advantage because they knew what was going on in the body.

They continued with some things that the Pre-historic people done such as using herbs and plants as medince. They still believe in evil spirits or Gods were the cause of illness they used charms to treat the sick and still had the medicine man and priests treating the sick.

Things that changed were Egyptions had docotrs and also had advanced knowledge on anatonmy. They introduced the 'Theory of the channels' as a new cause of illness and Hieroglyphics were used to write down remedies which could be passed on.

Hippocratic oath was to keep patients illnesses confidential and not to have a sexual relationship with any patient.

Doctors observed illness and kept records of what was happening to help them develop the knowledge for the illness.

Hippocrates said doctors should look for natural causes of illness not super-natural.

The theory of the 'Four humours' was developed from the 'Theory of the channels' this consisted of Blood, Yellow bile, Black bile and Phlegm. They Ancient Greeks believed with you had a nose bleed for example there was too much blood in your body. Doctors would then drain out the blood to get rid of some out of the body.

Romans were at an advantage when it came to treating injured people. This is because they were in the war and they had people to treat who were wounded, stabbed, infected etc.

The public health was introduced, public fountains with clean water, sewers where built, aquducts carried fresh water around the towns, baths were built for public use etc.

The Romans believed Miasma was to blame for illness which was bad smells in the air.

Galen discovered the Nervous system and proved with by experimenting on a pig.
He wrote 434 books on anatomy which was based on animals which lead to his mistakes ed on the jaw.
Doctor to the Emperor Marcus Aurelius which shows his ideas were accepted
His ideas were used for thousands of years as the Catholic church only allowed his ideas ro be taught as Galen was said to be the human body of God.

The Romans believed in the theory of 'The opposites' this was developed from the 'Four humours' but instead of having too much of something in the body they believed you didnt have enough of the opposite humour. For example if you had a cold it was because you didnt have enough black bile in your body so you would go to a doctor who would make you produce more.

The things that stayed the same between the Greeks and Romans were the use of herbs and plants which have been used since the Pre-historic times.
The opposited was based on the Four humours but was changed.

Things that changed between the Greeks and Romans was Romans build toilets which were cleaner and got rod of the waste by sewers.
They build water systems so fresh water was pumped into towns.
Galen discovered the Nervours system which introduced anatomy.
The Romans had a big empire which meant they had alot of money and they had a strong centralised government.

The Middle Ages went back on themselves and started believing in the super-natural were the cause of illness again. And that God would cure them, hospitals were not used even on serious injuries.

Public health was no longer and people went back to their own ways. Water was filled with bacteria and rats, mice and flies were infested in towns.

The Normans began returing the Romans cleanleness such and a clean water supply and sewers.

The 'Black death' in 1348 was spread by travellers coming to and from Europe by boat. The black rats travelled in the boats and arrived in another country and stayed their.
But people believed the cause of the plage was actually from miasma, punishment from God, eye contact, the humers inbalanced, earthquakes releasing bad smells and Jews.

The church stopped medical progess in the Middle Ages because the church controlled peoples thoughts. Roger Bacon was imprisoned by the church for challenging Galens ideas. The church controlled public health as monks and nuns ran the hospitals, fresh water systems were build in religious buildings for people to drink but anyone who was ill was not welcome in the buildings incase they spread the disease.

Andreas Vesalius was 1 of the 3 doctors which made a difference in the Renaissance. Vesalius was very important in the history of medicine because he challenged Galens ideas and proved they were wrong. He was a professor of surgery and went the university in Padua. He repeated experiments and when he wrote about them he got artists to illustrate his findings.
He wrote the book on anatomy 'Fabric of the human body' 1543.

Ambroise Pare was another doctor in the Renaissance and he used chance to make a medical advance. He was a doctor in the army and when he ran out of boiling oil for the injured he quickly remembered reading a Roman book about using a mixture of honey etc. He discovered this worked better for the soliders and found the injured were not in as much pain as the soldiers with boiling oil covered over the wound.
He wrote the book on surgery 'Works on surgery' 1575.

William Harvery was the last doctor in the renaissance to make a discovery for medicine. He as well as Versalius challenged Galens ideas and 'put on a show' to the public to prove his ideas were right. He discovered the circulation on the blood. That the blood is carried away from the heart by the arteries and carried to the heart by the veins and proved blood was not produced by the liver.
He wrote a book on the circulation of the blood 'An anatomical account of the motion of the heard and blood in animals'

There was another breakout of the plague called 'The Great Plague' 1665. Again people thought the cause for this was MIasma, supernatural causes, astrology, insects, human contact and microscopic creatures, which was true but people could not prove that the creatures were real.

Inoculation was used to stop people catching small pox, this was by using a small amount of the disease so people would have a very mild take to the disease and then become immuned to the actualy thing. People accepted this idea because they made alot of money from it.

Edward Jenner dicovered vaccination by observing milk ladies who did not get small pox, he discovered they had caught cow pox from milking the cows and so this immuned them from catching small pox which was alot worse. This was the start of inoculation. People accepted this idea because they couldnt believe you could cure one disease by catching another disease. After a while though Parliment granted Jenner 30,000 pounds to open a vaccination clinic and soon after vaccination was made compulsary.

Because the world had not stayed to the same standard of cleanleness as the Romans a break out of Cholera began, people believed it was because of dirty streets, nature, religion, unclean, not attending church and supernatural reasons. Edwim Chadwick wrote a report about the state of the towns, he said the disease came from decaying animals and vegetables and ordered the roads to be clean and better water to be supplied.

In 1848 the first public health act was put in place but was volentary.

John snow proved Cholera was a water based disease in 1854

Ignaz Semmelweiss tackled the questions of why babies were surviving better outside of the hospital rather than inside. Many people suggested it was to do with miasma inside the hospital but Semmelweiss discovered it was where trainee doctors had been handleing dead bobies in the autopsies and then gone to deliver a baby without washing their hands, people caught puerperal ferver. He also found midwives who hadnt been handleing dead bodies were more likely to deliver a baby without it dying than a doctor.

'The great stink' 1858 encouraged the governemnt to spend more money on public health because the Thames was being filled with sweage making London smell horrible.

Alexander Flemming was the founder of Penicillin in the Twenteeth century
Although he discovered this, he did not progress his findings because he as too interested in finding out other medical advances.

Florey and Chain later discovered penicillin and went to America to get a loan from the US government so they could globalise the discovery.
Soon after the government gave Florey and Chain the loan, penicilin was used on American soldiers on D day.