History of Medicine Flashcards
What are some of the discovery of Pre history ?
Bacteria: earliest forms of life on earth, evidence of their ability to infect humans and animals has been found in fossils from prehistoric times, including tuberculosis or Lyme disease.
Fossil remains also show signs of other diseases like arthritis, rickets or bone tumours
Any serious wound was a life-threatening event.
Defence against disease was limited to folk medicine, religious rituals and cultural practices.
What are the Pre Historians feature in 10,000 to 200 BC ?
Ancient Civilations :Egyptian Medicine
-Early Egyptians (4000-1000 BC) had many remedies for illness: spells, incantations and magic. Illness and death: actions of the gods and demonic possession. -
Despite that, some of the treatments were effective and still used today. -They treated disease based on what was perceived as the cause, a principle used today.
Where Egymtian the first to treat disease ?
They recognized that weather and ingestion of noxious substances affected the body •
They used drugs: castor or olive oil, opium, saffron. • Pulse and body temperature were measured. Diet and cleanliness were prescribed.
• Heart was considered a vital organ, and respiration the most important function. •
Severe penalties for letting a patient die. Compound fracture was considered a fatal condition. •
Physicians specialized: eye, head, intestines, etc.
Who else where ancitnt cilivations ?
Chinese Medicine
- Chinese medicine also contributed to remedies used today.
- An early Chinese emperor identified over 100 herbal remedies and invented acupuncture. -
Magic and superstition was also part of Chinese medicine.
-However, they discovered the use of iron to treat anaemia or opium as a narcotic to reduce pain. -
Traditional Chinese herb therapies are evaluated today for the development of new therapeutic strategies.
Who else where were ancient civilaztoons ?
Bibilical Times
Disease was thought of as coming from gods.
Treatments were used without any understanding as to why they worked.
-Basic notions about preventative medicine and the transmission of infectious diseases can be found in the Bible: relationship between rats and the plague or the segregation of the lepers. -
The Mosaic law also prescribed fumigation, decontamination of buildings, protection of water supplies, disposal of wastes, protection of food and sanitation of campsites.
Greece Hippocrates
- Hippocrates was interested in determining the cause and treatment of disease.
- Hippocrates believed in the healing power of nature, he prescribed diets, rest, fresh air, etc. He separated medicine from religion.
- Their approach to disease and clinical observation were the basis of the prevention and control of infectious diseases.
- Hippocrates was interested in determining the cause and treatment of disease.
- Hippocrates believed in the healing power of nature, he prescribed diets, rest, fresh air, etc. He separated medicine from religion.
-His approach to disease and clinical observation were the basis of the prevention and control of infectious diseases.
Greece: Hippocrates
Hippocrates
Who adopted from the Greek ? In terms of Public Health
Romans adopted from Greeks the search for scientific knowledge and public health measures:
- Aqueducts were built to supply cities with clean water
- Sewers prevented spread of infectious diseases • Street cleaning was required
- Public baths were available everywhere
- Physicians were educated at public expense, and their services were available to the poor
Name the Scientist involved In Public Health ?
Marcus Terentius Varro (116-217 BC) described “small creatures, invisible to the eye” that filled the air, were breathed in, and caused dangerous diseases.
What Happened after the Collapse of the Roman Empire ?
The collapse of the centralized Roman government led to the downfall of aqueducts and sewer systems, which influenced the spread of disease.
The rise of new religions also affected the search for new scientific knowledge > early Christians reacted against the GrecoRoman emphasis on physical health and beauty.
What Happened after the Collapse of the Roman Empire ? Pt2
As the East Roman Empire declined, an Islamic Empire expanded westwards.
Muslim scholars collected, translated and supplemented classical Greek works as well as texts from India and Northern Africa.
Among the most prolific and influential scholars of this period are Al-Razi (e.g. father of paediatrics) and Ibn Sina (first medical encyclopaedia).
These texts were archived at the House of Wisdom in Baghdad and other centres of study.
Emerging from the early medieval period, Europe remained ignorant of much of this knowledge.
The Middle Ages
Pilgrimages helped in the transmission of infectious diseases like cholera.
Christian reaction to Islam, the Crusades, contributed to the spreading of cholera and leprosy.
The most deadly of all pandemics were the waves of disease caused by bubonic plague: the “Black Death”.
20% of Europe’s population perished from a combination of the plague and pulmonary anthrax.
Protective
Syphilis spread rapidly through Europe shortly after the return of Columbus from America.
Other diseases known to exist during this period include: typhoid, typhus, diphtheria, streptococcal infections, and dysenteries. Isolation and quarantine were the only control methods, but they were practiced unevenly.
The Renaissance occurred after the Fall of the Roman Empire ?
-The Renaissance intellectual revolution stimulated scientific enquiry in all areas of human knowledge. -
Leonardo da Vinci and Andreas Vesalius dissected the human body and founded the modern anatomy.
Girolamo Fracastoro recognized the infectious nature of syphilis, typhus and tuberculosis.
His work,
De contagione, displaced the humoral doctrine of Hippocrates: there are specific causes for specific diseases.
In the late 16th and early 17th century the microscope was used for the first time in scientific investigations, by Galileo among others.
17 th Century after the fall of the Roman Empire ?
-Quick development of the scientific method stimulated by inductive reasoning (Francis Bacon) and questioning of any former “truths” (Rene Descartes). -
William Harvey demonstrated the circulation of blood. -
Anton van Leeuwenhoek described red blood cells and bacteria.
- Athanasius Kircher linked the live microorganisms in the blood with disease.
- Vitamin deficiency diseases like rickets (Vit. D) or beriberi (Vit. B1) were described.
- Thomas Sydenham: treatment against malaria (quininebased) and invention of laudanum (liquid opium).
Who Discovered Vaccine ?
During this century the scientists began to identify the organisms and causes for most diseases. -
Smallpox was a deadly disease at the time.
- Edward Jenner overhead a dairymaid that she could not catch smallpox because she had already had cowpox. -
- Jenner’s findings was the beginning of a cascade of scientific breakthroughs in the 19th century.
19 th Century
Louis Pasteur, first to demonstrate that microorganisms could be pathogenic to humans.
He developed pasteurization and vaccination against anthrax and rabies.
Based on Pasteur’s work, Joseph Lister applied antiseptics to surgical wounds > surgery 100 times safer.
Robert Koch, developed four postulates to identify an organism as the causative agent of a disease (germ theory):
1) it must always be present in the disease,
2) be capable of growth in pure culture in the laboratory,
3) cause the disease when injected in to a susceptible healthy animal,
4) be recovered from the experimental animal. He discovered the bacteria causing anthrax, cholera and tuberculosis.
Ronald Ross discovered the protozoan malarial parasite in human blood and his carrier, the anopheles mosquito > malaria could be controlled by destroying the mosquito larvae.
Claude Bernard formulated the basic principles of research and experiment.
He discovered glycogen and its production by the liver.
He was the first to define milieu interieur, now known as homeostasis.
Roentgen discovered the X-ray and Marie and Pierre Curie discovered radium, useful for diagnosing and treating cancer, among other diseases.
