medicine through time summary

what they thought caused disease: evil spirits.how did they try and cure it: trephinning ( drilling hole in head to let spirit out), herbal remedies, charms and amulets.who tried to cure it: medicine men

general health: died young, especially women from childbirth, they often got oesteoarthiritis from pulling heavy loads, had good teeth no sugar etc, people survived trephinning (skulls grown back)

how do we know: archeology, studying tribes such as abourigines.Cave paintings; show shamans and ritualistic sacrifices. Possible religion or medical practices?

Wounds; covered open wounds with mud to seal them off Broken bones; encased in mud/clay to help them heal properly Stomach-ache; cured by ingesting plant/herb bulbs Fevers; steamed themselves by fire

Buried their dead; society, civilisation?

what did they think caused disease:gods e.g. sekhmet god of war or imhotep god of healing and medicine, blocked channels they lived off the nile and they used irigation systems from the Nile to keep the crops growing when these became blocked the crops died, they believed that the human body had channels like the Nile and when they became blocked gases from food built up and made you ill.

how did they cure disease: herbal remedies, charms and amulets, praying, purging body, very odd medicine like eating rats.

who cured medicine:preists, families.

general health: the preists shaved and cleaned themselves for religious reasons but it achually improved hygiene. they had knoledge of anatomy from mummification but dissection wasnot allowed. they also had gnat nets to stop the spread of malaria

we have gathered this information from written records as the eygptians invented papyrus and heiroglyphics also from archeaolgy.

They believed that gods cured and caused disease such as Asclepious the god of healing, his daughters Hygeia and Panacea and his snakes. they were temples built called the asclepion which had good physilities such as gyms. people went there to be cured and they prayed and made offerings to asclepious before sleeping in the temple. many people thought they were cured this is psycosamantic. what might have cured them was the fesh air the good food the exercise or the rest.

they also had common sense ideas that Hippocrates thought of, his theaory of the for humours, that the body had four humours, blood, black bile, yellow bile and phlegm and if they went out of balance it made you ill, lead to blood letting and purging. his other ideas such as observation, diagnosis, recording cases and the hippocratic oath which is the doctor should serve the patient and not themselves are still used today. these ideas were a large step forward even if they were wrong and hippocrates wrote many books so these ideas were spread.

through dissection (animals) the greeks also realised that the brain controlled the body.

the romans big idea was public health, bath houses, sewers, aquaducts. they did this because they needed a healthy army to conquer all the places they conquered.

used many greek ideas such as the asclepion despite they fact they had their own gods. Galen believed for 1500 years coz wrote many books and fitted in with religion. mostly wrong. he extended the theory of the four humours into the theory of opposites if you had a cold eat something hot like a chilli. he would do live demostrations but could mostly only dissect animals so many of his anatomical ideas were wrong. the romans also used greek doctors but they were slaves and not respected.

the romans also used herbal remedies and some worked, they had some surgical instruments and primitive surgery but could not conquer gangrene, infection, bleeding or pain.

the romans made a common sense link between dirt and disease and also marshes.

The Black Death was thought to be caused by a number of things: astrology, punishment from God (the flagellants whipped themselves to try and compensate for their sins), Jews, witchcraft, fumes from volcanoes, bad air(miasma).

It was treated by holding bread against the boils and then burying it, cutting the boils to let the pus out, various fake medicines, charms and amulets, praying.

The attempts to stop the Black Death spreading were carrying herbs and spices, preventing people entering and leaving towns, tidying rubbish off the streets, fasting and praying, keeping the air moving.

The Black Death killed one in three people in europe.

There was a regression after the collapse of the Roman empire because there were many wars, education was disrupted, all the countries that grew afterwards were controlled by the Christian Church.

The Church often hindered progress as it controlled all reading and education and so could ban ideas that did not fit in. The doctors were trained by the church and were encouraged to believe supernatural causes and cures of disease. They taught Galen because he fitted in with their ideas although he was wrong.

Surgeons were trained by becoming apprentices and women could be surgeons but not doctors. Dwale and opium were used as anesthetic and wine to heal most wounds.

Doctors used the colour of the urine to diagnose patient. They also used herbal remedies some of which have been proven to work and bloodletting (often with leeches) alot!!!

Pare- was working as an army doctor when he ran out of oil to cauterise wounds. He used an old roman ointment. When he came back the next morning the wounds with roman ointment were much better than the cauterised wounds. He also thought that ligatures to stop the bleeding would be better these would have worked but the often were dirty and carried infection.

Versalius- studied and dissected the human body very carefully he used artists to draw parts of the body. He discovered that the jaw bone was one bone not two and that the blood could not pass through the septum from one side of the heart to the other, proving Galen wrong. He was not believed but his findings still encouraged doctors to question ancient facts.

Harvey- also proved Galen wrong as he proved that the blood went round the body pumped by the heart and was not made by the liver and burnt up going round the body as Galen thought. Both his and Versalius's discoveries could not be used in treatment but did begin the progress in medicine.

factors-chance, war, technology, communication, individual genius.

There was huge progress in this era at the beginning of this time people thought disease was caused by miasma and God.

There were many epidemics of cholera which killed many people, most people thought they were caused by miasmas. John Snow looked at the placement of the cases in London and discovered they were mainly around the broad street pump. He took the handle of the pump and people stopped dying. He proved that cholera was waterbourne but was still not believed.

Edward Jenner noticed that milk maids who got cowpox did not get the deadly disease of smallpox. He conducted experiments and then started vaccinating people against smallpox. There was lots of oppostion because people believed they would turn into cows or get cow diseases.

Surgery was improved by Lister using carbolic acid as an antiseptic, however it was not accepted as it made the process slow, doctor's hands crusty and he kept refinig his techniques so people thought he had got it wrong first time. Simpson discovered chloroform as an anesthetic and it was accepted after Queen Victoria used it.

Pasteur noticed that micro-organisms caused beer and silk to go off, he formulated the 1861 germ theory that micro-organisms caused rotting and illness as opposed to sponteaneous generation that rotting caused micro-organisms. Pasteur also found vaccinations for chicken cholera, anthrax and rabies.

Koch was Pasteur's german rival, he was very precise and mocked Pasteur's method. He isolated the micro-organisms that caused anthrax, turberculosis and cholera.

They would not have been able to do this without the new technology of the microscope invented by the van Leewenhoek but his microscopes were fuzzy. In 1830 Lister refined the microscope to make it possible to see clearly.with 1000x magnification.

Nursing was much improved by Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole. Florence was upper class and wanted to help the soldiers her breakthrough was insisting the wards were clean despite disaproving doctors. Mary Seacole was different because she was black and she worked on the front line.

Public Health was terrible at this time because of the industrial revolution. Everybody was moving from the countryside into the town and there was huge overcrowding. There was not clean water supplies. This led to the spread of contagious and waterbourne diseases such as cholera as in London people both dumped their rubbish in and drank out of the Thames. The poor health of the general public was highlighted by the Boer war as many soldiers who joined up were not fit. There was very high infant mortality.

In 1875 there was the Public Health act which forced local authorities to provide clean water, proper drainage and sewers and appoint Medical Officers of Health.

The effect of the wars, In the first world war X-rays became used regularly, blood transfusions were used effectively, the millions of wounded gave surgeons an opportunity to practice and invent new surgery. Soldiers in the war were promised better housing which helped speed up the improvments.

In the 1930s the electron microscope was invented which lead to the discovery of sulphonamides, drugs derived from coal tar to beat infection.Penicillin was first discovered by accident by Alexander Fleming in the 1920s it was ignored. It was hard to gather enough to experiment with. The Second World War lead to the American government giving Florey and Chain money to develop it which lead to it the first antbiotic being used on soldiers in the second world war.

Infant mortality decreased because mothers and midwives were educated, new houses were built and children were fed by the council.

The NHS was developed so everyone could have healthcare from cradle to grave. There was opposition because doctors feared interference and it would cost alot. However, it meant that the poor could be treated and doctors could work as part of a team.