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⚕️💊 Medicine Through Time ⏰🏥 - Coggle Diagram
⚕️💊 Medicine Through Time ⏰🏥
The Middle Ages
Ideas about causes
Church sources teach that God's punishment was the cause of disease and that the only was to avoid the symptoms was to be a better follower of religion. This send like a good enough reason for many so no medical research was conducted to find alternative theories
Church teachings were all but fact in these times
To the common man, the Church was the only source of wisdom and authority in their lives so whatever was said was taken as the truth
Monks were the only people in society who could read and write so anything that was written down was recorded by then
The church controlled all libraries and books so thus controlling what people read
Some rational ideas about disease were allowed such as Galen's theory of the for humours. This was allowed as people thought that every part of the body was created by God and thus needed to work together harmoniously.
The 4 humours theory was thought up in ancient Greece by the Greek doctor Hippocrates. He thought that the fundamentals of the body were related to the so called elements of earth: earth, fire, water and air. The human body has a similar system: phlegm, blood, black bile and yellow bile.
The theory of miasma also began to gain traction at this point. This was the idea that bad smells (or bad air) could lead to diseases. This was because people believed he smells indicated a person's soon.
Astrology became a more accepted theory during this time with people people using it to diagnose problems with patients. Is used became increasingly widespread after the black death in this period
Church teachings did however also suggest that, following Jesus' example, we should care for the sick to help them get better. This lead to early hospitals being set up in monistaries
Ideas about treatment
Galen was one of the first people to suggest cures that could be used for illness. One such of his suggestions was, building on the theory of 4 humours, the theory of opposites. This involved trying to balance the humours by giving a patient the opposite of their symptoms. For example, phlegm, which was tagged as being cold and wet, was treated with hot peppers etc.
With this in mind, most treatments involved trying to balance the Humous. For example, blood letting would be done - either by Barber surgeons of, rarely, by physicians - using either an incision or with leaches.
Purging was another common way to rebalance the humours. This involved using, either emetics or laxatives to make a patient remove bodily food
Herbal remedies were also often mixed up by wise women or apothecaries. These were often ineffective as they were mixed up by people without training. Occasionally however effective combinations would be stumbled upon
There were also some very specific supernatural treatments like rubbing a chicken in oneself to transfer the disease into that instead🐔
Hospitals
During these times, hospitals would have been run by the church due to religious belief about helping those in need
Unlike today, hospitals would have been more about rest and recuperation as oppose to healing the sick and ill
In fact, this with contagious or incurable problems were most certainly not allowed in the hospitals
Instead, hospitals would have been for travelers of pilgrims to stay while on their journeys
Hospitals were however well cleaned and hygienic places where patients were given lots of good food
Ideas about prevention
Widespread religious presence in society, supernatural prevention methods were often suggested
The most obvious of these is simply to lead a good Christian life - making sure to pray, to to church, pilgrimage etc.
Carrying lucky charms of chanting incantations was also used
Another idea was that flagellation could be used as a self punishment method - thus meaning that God would not have to issue a punishment
Ironically, most rational treatments were, just that, rational
For example Keeping streets clean
Purification of the air
Bathing out washing
Exercise and not over eating
Physicians
Physicians were university trained professionals that could diagnose diseases and then prescribed a cure. Such a cure often involved referring patients to a barber surgeon or wise women
They were very expensive to use and there were very few around. This made them almost exclusively for the wealthy
Common diagnosis techniques for a physician included observation of symptoms, pulse checking, skin colour and urine samples. They would often consult their handbook for urine charts or zodiac charts to calculate the optimum find to treat the patient
Black death case study (1348/1349)
The black death was an instance of the bubonic plague and was please to humans through the bite of an infected flea.
Such information was clearly not known at the time as people had some much more interesting methods of avoiding the disease
As mentioned previously, the miasma theory was still very strong so people used fire and birds flying around to attempt to keep the air in the room moving, this distributing miasma
there was also a belief in the fact that outsiders or strangers; maybe witches, could cause the disease so people are careful not to let these kind of people into the house or town.
Other methods as previously mentioned such as avoiding bad air, prayer and self-punishment
Symptoms of the disease include: headache, fever, vomiting and large lumps known as buboes
The Industrial Revolution
The Medical Renaissance
World War 1
Background
On 4th August 1914, the United Kingdom declared war upon Germany and sent troops into northern France. By the end of that year, fighting was restricted to a line stretching from Northern France in the English channel to Switzerland
Battles
October 1914 saw the first battle of Ypres. This was a significant location as it allowed the allais to maintain access to English channel ports
The battle of hill 60 was notable as it involved the allais tunneling into the hill and exploring mines inside it
Second battle of Ypres was in the April/may of 1ó15. This represents the first time the Germans used chlorine gas as a weapon
The Battle of the Somme was from July to November of 1916. This was the first time trial of certain tactics like the creeping barrage and tanks. It is known as the most bloody battle in history due to the huge amount of casualties from both sides
Third Battle of Ypres was another time where a creeping barrage was used. It happened from July to November of 1917 and caused many days from drowning due to waterlogged ground
Battles of Arras from April to May of 1917 were important as the British used a network of underground tunnels to launch the attack. It was successful to some extent but in the end lead to a high number of casualties
A Cambrai Battle took place from November-December 1917 and was the first large scale use of tanks
The trench system
The beach of the trench system consistent of artillery equipment
The beach trench was known was the reserve trench and was where troops could be stationed for backup of counter-attack
Support trenches were just behind the front. This is where troops from the front line would retreat to
The front line trenches were the centre for operations. This is where attacks would be launched
All trenches were linked together with a communication trench
Trenches also featured dugouts where soldiers would stay it they weren't on duty at a given time
Initially, the trenches were rudimentary and hurriedly drug however were slowly improved over time. Transport was also very difficult due to terrain problems and waterlogging in poor weather
Injuries
Starting at the second battle of Ypres, has attacks are common. They caused burns and temporary blindness however gas masks helped reduce these
Head injuries were very common - mostly due to shrapnel. These problems were reduced through the introduction of Brodie helmets
Shell Shock was little known back then. Its symptoms including complete mental breakdown were often mistaken for cowardice however many causes were treated on the front line or sent home to British hospitals
Trench fever was a flu like illness that was caused by lice. This was fixed in the latter part of the war but a de-lousing initiative
Trench foot was very common too; caused by soldiers having their feet submerged in water for too long. This lead to gangrene that could only be fixed through amputation. Latterly, pumps are installed, duck boards to and soldiers are given whale oil to apply to their feet
Obviously bullets could penetrate any post of the body causing incision wounds
High explosives were by far the biggest killer by blowing off limbs of causing internal organ failure
Infections were by far one of the biggest killers as the soil in the Western front was full of bacteria that would get into the wounds of soldiers. This was prevented largely, in the case of tenus, infections against it were given out. The only way to deal with gangrene remained amputation
RAMC
The majority of medical care was administered by the Royal Army Medical Core alongside the FANY
Modern Day
