Medicine Through Time

• The Greeks discovered the four humors. These were blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile.

• In the 2nd century, Galen developed his Theory of Opposites and wrote over 350 medical texts.

• He claimed to have discovered everything in medicine so there was a halt to reasearch. 8 centuries later, his teachings were still being used.

• In the 12th century, "knowledge" progressed as many doctors believed in astrology. Diagnosis was used, but only a very small scale, like comparing a patients urine colour to a chart.

• The Plague hit in 1348, carried by fleas.

• Most people at this time were Catholic and strongly religious.

• Many ideas on the cause of the plague occured, but most thought it was either a punishment from god, an imbalance of the four humours, astrology or miasma.

• The church liked Galens teachings because they fitted well with christian beliefs. Most collections of books, including medical books, were owned by monastaries.

• Superstition and supernatural ideas were still strongly believed in the middle ages.

• womens role was severely limited, as they wern't allowed to attend university. Some women worked as midwives, but had to have a licence from their bishop claiming they were of good character and wouldn't encourage illegal abortions.

• The role and education of women, even for the rich, was mostly based around running the home

• Vesalius discovered that many of Galens ideas were wrong, for example; the jaw is one bone, not two, the live doesn't have lobes and the hearts septum doesn't have no holes. He wrote "The Fabric of the Human Body" in 1543 with detailed drawings based on dissection

• Harvey found that veins carried only blood, not a mixture of blood and air, and that blood is circulated, rather than constantly manufactured. In 1628 he wrote "An Anatomical Account of the Heart and Blodd in Animals"

• The impact of Harveys' and Velsalius' findings was limited because doctors were reluctant to admit they were wrong, especially as Galens teachings had been used for 13 centuries. Also, Harveys work was on physiology, not treatment so it was overlooked.

• There were many developments in the renaissance, like mechanisms in pumps and clocks, improved microscopes and the printing press.

• In 1665 The Plague hit.

• The renaissance improved knowledge of the human body but not understanding of  illness and treatment.

• In 1831 Cholera hit.
• People now knew that disease spread in unhygeinic conditions, but not why.
• People thought germs and disease was caused by miasma or spontaneous generation.
• Miasma is the idea that disease came from bad air cuased by the fumes of rotting vegetables or flesh.
• Spontaneous generation is the idea that disease was caused by germs which are caused by rotting flesh and vegetables.

• Innoculation was developed in China. It involves infecting the patient with a small, mild amount of the disease so the infected survives and is immune form furhter attacks.

• Innoculation became popular in Britain in 1721. Jenner learned about it and began to innoculate people.

• Jenner disocevered that people who had had cowpox didn't need to be innoculated for small pox.

• Jenner called this vaccination. It meant to use a similar or inactive strain of a disease to build someones immunity.

• Doctors disliked vaccination because the government made it free, and they lost money on innoculations.

• In the 1861 Pasteur discovered Germ Theory. This was the belief that microbes in the air caused decay and spread diseases. He found this after discovering that liquids like milk were turned sour by small microorganisms, and that heating the liquid killed them.

• In 1875 Koch found that specific microbes caused specific diseases.

• In 1879 Pasteur found that a weakened strain of an illness could be used in vaccintation.

Doctors had to be accepted into either:

• The Royal college of Surgeons
• The Royal college of Physicians
• The Society of Apothecaries

In 1815 The Royal college of Surgeons and the Society of Apothacaries introduced exams before awarding a certificate.

In 1858 The General Medical Act was passed, which said a General Medical Council had to be set up and doctors had to be registered.

More doctors became GPs or specialists.

Increased popularity in learning from dissections led to body snatching. In 1832 the Anatomy Act was passed saying that licensed anatomists couls have the bodies of people in the workhouse if they were unclaimed.

John Hunter encouraged the use of a scientific approach; he employed people to type up his notes and draw detailed diagrams of his dissections.

From 1739 William Smellie influenced the way childbirth through lecutures and his books.

Women began to demand the vote and the right to attend university.

In the 17th century forceps were invented, so midwives had to be trained (to use them). This led to a decline in midwifery.

1833 in Kaiserwerth, Germany, training for nurses begins. It's still not seen as a reprectable career in Britain so most nurses are poor and uneducated.

In 1877 women could qulify as doctors in British universities. Men think women are too emotional for dissections and wont be taken seriously by patients.