How have medicine and health developed over time
Developments in medicine before 1750
Medicine and health improved over time, the most dramatic improvements were in the last 200 years; however there werw some key developments in the modern era
Serious illnesses were trated by medicine men
Midwifery and basic care were often left to women
It was believed thet illnesses had either supernatural causes or natural causes
Supernatural Causes
Natural Causes
In the case of an injury from hunting or an insect bite
Vengeful Gods
Evil Spirits
The treatment
Combination of ritual, prayer, herbs and basic surgery such as trephining
Trephining
Trephining is the drilling of a hole through the scalp and the skull to relieve pressure on the brain.
The Ancient Greeks
They saw gods as as importance to health and had temples to the god of health
They thought that humans had four humours, and if these were in inbalance an illness was caused
The four humours
Black Bile
Yellow Bile
Blood
Phlegm
The Romans
Professional treatment was expensive
Ordinary people used family herbal medicines and resorted to asking the gods for help
They built a temple to Asclepius(just like the Greeks)
The most famous Roman doctor was Galen. He followed hippocrates´ methods of observation and believed in the four humours
Galen had a new idea
He tought that the humours could be rebalanced using "opposites", for example taking pepper or something hot when you had a cold.
Galen learnt from his dissections about how each body part fitted together and tought his students about how well the human body was built
This idea was taken in by the Christian Church and was used as evidence of God´s creation of mankind
Galen wrote 60 books that combined Greek ideas with Roman theories
These writings led to the foundation for medicine for the next 1500 years
The key idea which flourished throughout the roman empire was that of public health.
The Romans attemped to keep cities and people clean by constructing sewers, aqueducts (which brught clean water) and public bath-houses
The Middle Ages
The Christian Church's power had grown
By the 1300s the church had set up universities where doctors could be trained, and Galen's ideas were rediscovered
In the mid 1340s a catastrophic epidemic called Black Death (AKA Burgonic Plague). It killed over 40% of the population
Groups called the "Flagellants" tried to atone for their sins and the sins of others and to appease a vengeful God. They would roam whipping themselves and asking people to repent
Doctors atteped to balance the humours , as they had done in ancient times, and one of the most common remedies was blooding a patient
Women were not permitted to go to university and could not train to be professional doctors but they continued to be the key care providers for the sick in most towns and villages and were also midwives, taking care of childbirth
After the fall of the Roman Empire, a new civilization developed in the Middle East founded on Islam.
The Qur´an(Now known as the Conar/Korán) tells muslims that it is important to care for the sick.
The Renaissance
There were a number of medical breakthroughs from 1500 to 1650(The Medical Renaiccance)
Vesalius believed that it was important for knowledge and understanding for doctors to pèrform human dissections. He said that ideas hat to be tested, not just followed blindly
Ambroise Paré was another important figure in the 1530s and 1540s. his major achievment was in surjery After becoming an army surgeon in 1536, he spent 20 years with the army treating battle wounds.
Doctors in the past used Red hot iron or poured boiling oil un injuries to treat deep wounds or amputations. But Paré didnt think any of these methods were useful, so instead he tied the ends of arteries with silk threads to stop the bleeding and also used bandages.
Paré didn't have antiseptics or disimfectants, so therefore using sick threads could lead to great infections deep in wounds, so some doctors continued to cauterize
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A man called Ibn Sina, he worked in the early eleventh century and wrote the 1.000.000 word book