C02- Ancient World Flashcards
What is Science
inquiry into nature with 2 attributes 1) it is natural 2) it is rational
Supernatural
beyond scientific understanding
Greeks tried to find natural causes of things by
- Observation
2. Reason
Thales of Miletus
- first natural philosopher
- earth is a disc
- everything is water
- consolidation and expansion (steam is expanded water, earth is consolidated water)
Empedocles
- the originator of the 4-element model of nature
- fire, air, water, earth
- 2 forces - love (attraction) and hate (repulsion)
Empedocles Biology
- think primarily with our blood because the four elements are most evenly mingled in our blood
- Animals have evolved over time from bizarre ancestors.
What was Democritus main discovery
Atomism
Democritus atomism and biology
- the soul consists of fire atoms
- respiration brings in a fresh supply of soul atoms from the air
- perceived object was eye interacting with atoms
3 limitations of the first period of Greek Philosophy
- Not much experimental procedure
- not much chem
- not much physics
Where was Hippocrates from
- From Cos
- but had an Asclepiad father
Hippocrates view on medicine
- rejected religion and supernatural in medicine
- said epilepsy had natural cause
- observing the patient (sight, hearing, touch, taste)
- -> study the patient rather than the disease (age, diet, sleeping habits, dreams)
- -> assist nature to heal patient
what is the snakes and staff on the health symbol
Staff: walking stick of the travelling physician (hippocrates)
Snake: moulting snake is a symbol for rejuvenation; or a guinea work (worm that infects blood vessels) have to take it out with a stick
Hippocratic Physiology
related 4 elements of Empedocles to four humours (fluids) in your body
What are the Hippocrates Humours
- blood
- yellow bile
- black bile
- phlegm
What do Hippocrates humours relate to
- blood –> air
- yellow bile –> fire
- black bile –> earth
- phlegm –> water
What are Galen’s Temperaments
- sanguine
- choleric
- melancholic
- phlegmatic
What did Rudolf Virchow discover
all parts of the body produce seed material; hereditary material from mother and father
Pangenesis
mechanism for heredity
Pneuma
The life giving principle of air
Early Hippocratic’s thought on the brain
thought that it was a radiator that cools the blood and separates water and mucus
Later Hippocratic’s thought on the brain
under the influence of Democritus, believed that the brain is the centre of thought and feeling
Hippocratic’s and their treatments
- diagnosis is not emphasized
- few named diseases
- wouldn’t treat harshly
- had SOME drugs
- used bloodletting
Where was Aristotle born?
Macedonia
What did Aristotle Study
- was going to be a physician
- his father died then he went to learn philosophy
- never became an Asclepiad physician
- then studied biology (marine was his main interest)
What else did Aristotle do
- fled a revolution in Lesbos, returned to Macedonia
- tutored the prince: Alexander the Great
- retured to Athens and established his owl school: the Lyceum
- Alexander and the Macedonian army took over Athens, Aristotle was a suspect and the was exiled on Chalcis
what has Ernst Mayr accused Plato of
impeding the progress of Biology for over 2000 years for his anti-evolutionary influence on Aristotle’s biology
Plato’s theory of universals
there are ideal forms. Objects are imperfect reflections of these forms
Essentialist Thinking (Plato and later Aristotle)
ideal forms are the ultimate reality. Variations are an illusion
Population Thinking (modern Biology)
the reverse variations from ideal are reality. Ideal forms are illusions
Plato’s teleologic explanation
everything in the world was created by God with a rational plan in mind
Aristotle’s modification of Plato’s idealism
potentiality + form = actuality
–> you look at actual things in the world but you look beyond those
Eidos
form giving principle in semen –> determined the form of the offspring (aristotle)
Catamenia
reproductive fluid (menstrual blood)
How were Aristotle similar to Pluto
Aristotle’s view of living functions was teleologcal, like Plato’s “nature does nothing without a purpose”
Aristotle scale of nature
understood that natural groups existed
-knew the difference between vertebrates and invertebrates (animals with blood, animals without blood)
Why do some attributes lead to natural groups and some lead to unnatural groups? 3 answers
- Attributes that lead to natural groups are essential to the organisms that possess them; attributed that do not lead to natural groups are not essential
- Attributes that lead to natural groups are correlated because they must occur together due to functional dependence, Attributes that do not lead to natural groupings are not functionally related to one another
- Attributes that lead to natural groups are inherited from the same common ancestor, they are there because of relatedness. Attributes that do not lead to natural groupings are not inherited from the same common ancestor (best answer)
Aristotle’s Anatomy and Physiology
- thought that the heart is the organ of should and intelligence
- thought that food was “cooked” in the gut
Aristotle’s conception of physics/earth
- thought that the earth was the centre of everything and that everything went around the earth
- views of motion, everything has a natural place, rocks fall because its natural place. (rocks fall because their place is centre of earth and smoke rises cause their place is heaven)
What were Herophilus and Erasistratus majors in and what did they believe
Physicians and Anatomists
- blood is synthesized from food and is disrupted in the veins
- pneuma (spirit) is replenished by respiration. Vital pneuma is carried by the arteries to the brain. The brain converts the vital pneuma to animal spirits which are carried by the hollow nerves to the muscles
Heterophilus vs Erasistratus views on blood/arteries
Heterophilus - the beating of the heart transmits pulsations to the arteries; both veins and arteries carry blood
Erasistratus - arteries have blood only when it seeps from the tissues into the arteries
Pliny the Elder
- Lived 2 lives (1. lawyer, civil administrator, military officer) (2. historian, encyclopedist)
- wrote a big encyclopedia on Natural History.
Celsus
- Wrote a large encyclopedia but only the part on medicine survived
- believed that the surgeon should assist nature
Galen of Permagon
- surgeon to gladiatorial school at pergamon
- son of Marcus Aurelius
- unpopular with other physicians
- patients liked him
- highly teleological view of the body: everything is there for a reason
Galen’s medical advances
- did lots of dissections
- examined bones
- observational and experimental
- the voice is laryngeal nerves that lead to the brain
- kidney makes urine
- arteries contain blood not air
- gut peristalsis
- spinal cord
- said that blood does not circulate
- venous blood distributes food
- arterial blood distributes pneuma. pneuma is taken up by the lungs and is converted to spirits that are distributed by arterial blood to provide warmth, life and movement
Galen and surgery
-was a good surgeon, fixed fractures, removed tumours,, neuro surgery, eye surgeryy
Theriac
complex drug mixture
Polypharmacy
complicated and undefined mixtures of drugs (herbal medicine)
-with polypharmacy scientific testing and dosage becomes an issue
2 approaches to drugs
- Polypharmacy
2: modern pharmaceuticals
- -> consistent dosage is possible and you can test these drugs
Why was Galen like Aristotle
Had a bit of a religious element, could fit with christianity (like aristotle’s spiritual element)
The scientific legacy of the ancient world
- spirit of natural, rational thought and inquiry
- natural history
- pragmatic, ethical medicine
- lay down what is true
- the first jobs of modern science were to fully understand ancient science and then travel beyond
