Health & Disease in World History Midterm Flashcards
Hippocratic Corpus
A collection of around 60 works written between 420 and 350 BCE, likely by several authors, that served as a basis for medical practice in Ancient Greece. These works are commonly attributed to Hippocrates, a medical practitioner and scholar in ancient Greece, and the central theories of this work are foundational to the Hippocratic-Galenic medical tradition, which influenced medical practice for over 10 centuries and is still referenced today. Some theories prevalent in this work are that disease is a natural event, the body exists as a microcosm that mirrors the macrocosm of the natural world, health and disease are a matter of the balance and imbalance of humors, and conservative therapies such as drugs, surgery, lifestyle changes, nature, and more were encouraged.
Rationalist/Empiricist
Empiricists believe treatments are valid if they have a demonstrated efficacy regardless of cause while rationalists are more focused on philosophy and believe doctors should try to explain the world around them and how that’s linked with underlying causes of disease rather than solely determine a treatment. This split occurred as the Greek empire expanded and thinkers and commentators slowly altered the Hippocratic corpus.
Classical Chinese Medicine
A branch of Chinese medicine that emerged via the medical marketplace in China and became popularized c. 200 BCE as it was sponsored by emperors around the time of the Han Dynasty. It emphasizes a naturalistic and constitutional approach to health and disease that focuses on managing the flow of qi in the body through therapeutic practices which include acupuncture, pulse taking, herbal remedies, moxibustion, and more. Classical Chinese Medicine has borrowed from other traditions, such as acupuncture from Asian shamans, adapted to new medical environments, such as biomedicine in the US, and persisted until current day so it has proven to be incredibly adaptable and long lasting.
Biohistory
Classic accounts of epidemic diseases that frame diseases as biological forces that have a large role in shaping human history. Can be summarized by William McNeill in Plagues and Peoples where he highlights that the biological factors associated with disease are devastating in their scope and have shaped much of history in a way that historians have downplayed. Can be contrasted to cultural approaches of framing disease by Charles Rosenburg.
Charles Rosenburg
Frames disease as not only a biological event but also more generally as complex social events with both biological and non-biological components. Some non-biological components are constructs, aspects of social identity, a structuring element of society/social responses/relationships between doctors and patients. Also talks about leprosy as an example of disease playing an aspect in social role and identity.
Bubonic vs septicemic vs pneumonic
Three distinct forms of Yersinia pestis infections. During the bubonic stage, fleas inject organism into the human lymphatic system which leads to buboes or lymphatic swelling which then leads to 50% death. During the septicemic form, injection by fleas occurs via bloodstream which leads to bleeding from nose or eyes, blood in urine/stool, sometimes subcutaneous bleeding leading to 100% death. During the pneumonic stage, humans spread it by coughing/sneezing which leads to coughing up blood and painful breathing and then 100% death within 2 days.
Virgin soil thesis
Posited that Indigenous populations are biologically defenseless to Old World diseases and died disproportionately. Some historians challenge the virgin soil thesis and claim that it overemphasizes biology at the expense of other factors such as colonialism.
Official vs unofficial medicine in the Spanish Americas
Official medicine consisted of universities and hospitals, a state-sponsored tribunal, religious tribunal for eradicating hearsay. Unofficial medicine consisted of a spectrum of healers that drew from a blend of Indigenous, European, and African traditions, these often combined naturalistic and supernatural practices.
Soundness
Measurement of a slave’s physical state and also to their past and future health, for female slaves could refer to female’s capacity to bear children, minds and personalities were also subject to market assessment, defined by the capacity to labor, reproduce, obey, and submit. Physicians were recruited to assess soundness and participate in the system of slavery
Opinion Issued by the Medical Faculty at the University of Paris on the causes of the Black Death
Speaks to the rediscovery of Hippocrates during medieval Europe as learned medicine was revived. In medieval Europe, the popularization of learned medicine was also associated with desecularization and Christianity became deeply entwined with it. This correlated with a wave of translations that led to the spread of ancient Greek medicine along with some critiques and adjustments. In addition, learned medicine became institutionalized and hospitals and universities were key institutions where medicine was taught, gained a foothold, and exerted influence. It was one style of healing that few people had access to.
Colonial expansion and medicine in Spanish Americas
Colonialism and the erasure of Indigenous populations by Spaniards. Introducing the virgin soil thesis and opponents. Look at official vs unofficial medicine. Medicine was additionally split into Official and Unofficial medicine. Official medicine consisted of universities and hospitals, a state-sponsored tribunal, religious tribunal for eradicating hearsay. Unofficial medicine consisted of a spectrum of healers that drew from a blend of Mesoamerican, European, and African traditions, these often combined naturalistic and supernatural practices, and these practices were often criminalized
Talk about Indigenous healing and specifically Martha Few’s discussion on Maria Garcia, an Indigenous healer in eighteenth-century Guatemala. Worked as part of the informal economy and drew from years of Mesoamerican medical cultures and knowledge of botanicals. Spanish inquisition persecuted many of these practices, but they persisted and Mesoamerican cultures were kept alive through their own medical practices.
Colonial expansion and slavery
Medical practitioners played a key role in crafting a discourse about enslaved bodies (soundness, drapetomania), slavery was justified in a medical context. Slavery and race was also medicalized and doctors posited that innate bodily differences between black and white bodies made black people more tolerant to pain/mistreatment, this justified Dr. Marion Sim’s experiments on Black female slaves which were often painful and brutal. Even though slavery was a “social death,” slaves kept their medical culture alive through herbs and conjuring medicine, these arguably were “acts of resistance.”
