2. Introduction

Question 1

How do we learn/do the history of health, illness, and medicine?

Answer 1

1. Intellectual History of medicine
2. Social history
3. Cultural history

Question 2

What are the differences between Health, Illness, and Medicine

Answer 2

Health: Overall well-being of the physical and mental body.

Illness: Something that gives ailment

Medicine: Something that Doctors or people with credentials prescribe, everything else is “healing”.

healing is activities we do to help us feel better
ex: eating soup when sick

Question 3

How do we learn the history of H.I.M. through intellectual history?

Answer 3

We can turn to documented history such as books and tools to understand how people back then developed ideas (history of ideas)

ex: Hippocrates books

Question 4

How do we learn the history of H.I.M. through social history?

Answer 4

Similar to intellectual history, we can analyze the way people interacted back then to understand how they handled H.I.M through books.

Unfortunately, many lives of people aren’t documented. Patient history is only learned through the perspective of doctors

Question 5

How do we learn the history of H.I.M. through cultural history?

Answer 5

We can analyze the culture of the past as well as their beliefs to further understand why they did what they did (regarding H.I.M) back then

Question 6

Why do we start our learning with Ancient Greece?

Answer 6

Western philosophical and scientific traditions emerged in Greece and was more advanced compared to the rest of the world.

Hippocrates’ started his research and impacted the community. Galen popularized Hippocratic medicine for many years. Both are key to the foundation of H.I.M. in Greece

Question 7

Further explain the advancements of Greece to understand why H.I.M. emerged there.

Answer 7

Greece had democracy, medicine, olympics, and drama.

These advancements are referred to as the “Greek Miracle”

Question 8

What about the advancements of H.I.M. in places like China, the Middle East, etc?

Answer 8

Hippocratic medicine was far more advanced and unique, making it more popular than other places of the world.

Question 9

What is the general idea of religion and healing in antiquity?

Answer 9

When people do wrong things that cause disrespect or anger to someone, the supernatural-usually a God- can can cause terrible illnesses.

It is within a priest to help solve such problems.

(This is based off of Homers famous epic poem, the Illiad)

Question 10

What does a snake symbolize in history of medicine?

Answer 10

• Symbolized drug therapy, they both harm and cure.
• Greek word pharmakon means healing drug and poison
• symbol can be found in todays medical symbols

Question 11

Asklepeia

Answer 11

• Temples and sanctuaries
• A holy place hoping for health and had shrines to God
• Priests of Asklepios (God of Medicine) healed on behalf of God

Question 12

Pergamum and Epidaurus

Answer 12

• Sanctuaries that could house as many as 160 guests
• minerals, gyms, and theatres were used to heal
• a center of health that many important Roman officials visited

Question 13

Incubation Therapy

Answer 13

• A ritual where patients take drugs like opium to induce a sleep with vivid dreams (process of purification)
• God would show himself in the dream and would advise how to regain back health
• Priests will only interpret the dreams (Hippocrates and Galen were Therapeutae priests)
• Scholars predict that while the patients are drugged and asleep, healers would perform surgery
• Snakes were sacred to Asklepius, and non-venomous snakes would crawl during the rituals

Question 14

Terracotta votive

Answer 14

Visitors would display their affected body part at temples to show people the parts that healed

also a marketing scheme

Question 15

Why should we care about Asklepios (God of Medicine)?

Answer 15

• Because health and healing were deeply connected with religion and non-religious (trial and error) basis
• Both Hippocrates and Galen were therapeutae (healing/service) of Asklepios

Question 16

Final Thought son Hippocratic Medicine?

Answer 16

The book Hippocratic Corpus, shared many generalizing ideas but was inconsistent with one another, proving that the Hippocratic system of medicine is impossible

Question 17

What is the Hippocratic Corpus

Answer 17

• 60 books of medical works written between 420-350BC (assembled 280BCE)
• It was Hippocratic tradition to name your book after your master, so it is unclear which written ideas are Hippocrates’ or his students (Hippocrates also had 6 relatives with the same name and are physicians)

Question 18

Main Ideas of Hippocratic Medicine

Answer 18

• Humours and the environment
• bodily processes, health and illnesses can be explained by natural phenomena (no need for spiritual inferences)
• Diseases can’t be treated without knowing the whole body as well as its own environment (could be the cause)
• Rational, theory, debate, contextualization of health and the body, body’s environment, are all appealing characteristics of Hippocratic medicine

Question 18

The idea behind Humours (chymol)

Answer 18

• Each individual has a “balance” and when disrupted, it can cause illnesses. Need to re-balance to be healed
• 4 humours are: Phlegm, Yellow Bile, Black Bile, Blood

This idea became the most important and major paradigm of medicine for almost 2000 years

• Galen made the humours a basis for health and healing, Hippocratic texts only touched on it as a theory

Question 19

Explain the 4 Humours

Answer 19

1. Phlegm: Winter colds cause phlegm, coughs and mucus expel them
2. Yellow Bile: Summer heat brings diarrhea and vomiting, which leads to the excretion of yellow bile
3. Black Bile: aka Melancholy, a dangerous bile or burnt blood
4. Blood: Dangerous if expelled through a wound but normal if expelled naturally (menstruation, nose bleeds, haemorrhoids)

Question 20

How do we bring Humours back into balance?

Answer 20

• do not recommend surgery
• Plan diet, rest, exercise, and relationship to the environment
• Illness is considered a process of change, so regimens should slow down or completely stop the negative changes leading to illness
• Regimen cures illnesses and is prophylactic (prevents condition). And understanding how the body worked can prescribe regimens to maintain the balance. Knowledge of patient history and environment makes regimens stronger
• The balance foretells what conditions will likely occur

Question 21

Prognosis

Answer 21

By understanding the present and the past, healer can predict the future

Question 22

what does healing by knowledge of the “whole” mean?

Answer 22

1. Has a rational system that separates a learned healer from the unlearned healer
2. Impression of authority is given when the healer is able to say past illnesses of a patient
3. “No fault healing” means if a healer can’t heal, he can predict death

• If patient survives, doctor has great learning skills that overcame nature
• If patient dies, the doctor has good prediction meaning he is knowledgeable.

Question 23

What is the Healers Oath?

Answer 23

Means to adhere to the practice of medicine based on ethical, rational, sound experience, learning and independent judgement