History of Medicine Lecture 1 Flashcards
Hippocratic Medicine’s Main Features
- diet or “regimen”
- Four “humours”
- Obeservation and expectative therapy
- Prognosis
Egyptian Civilization - 3000 BCE- Medical System
Mummies’ diseases- tuberculosis, arthritis, dental caries, parasites, cancers
Humans born healthy- attached by demons and intestinal putrefaction-
Medicine was magical/ritualistic/ Shamanic- “temple sleep”-aka “incubation” and therapeutic dream
Surgery- compounded drugs & Lay physicians
What is Temple sleep?
Egyptian idea that sleeping at holy place will allow a visit from the Gods to cure disease
Who was the egyptan writer in 500 BCE
Herodotus
What did Herodotus write
Egypt was the mother country of diseases- parasites, infectious diseases, metabolic diseases, anemia…egypt had many physician specialties
Who is Egyptian Imhotep?
Ancestor of modern physician 2700 BCE- vizier to pharaoh Djozer—-a polymath, deified in later dynasties
what is a polymath
a healther, high priest, astrologer, architect
ancient egyptian medical instruments
lancets, forceps, hooks, probes
What is George Ebers Papyrus from Egypt? 1550 BCE
most important & oldest surviving text- near luxor–covers many diseases=abdominal compaints, diseases of eye, skin disease
therapeutics = magical healings
lists of drugs, formulas and herbals
a dozen more medical papyri exist
What is the significance of the Mycenean Era (1500-1100)?
Greece traded with egypt- knew therapies
shamanic folk healers and priest likely common (illness caused by anger of whim of gods)
Little survives before hippocrates
Homer’s Iliad- 600 BCE
Begins with plague–describes battle wounds and treatment in trojan war
asclepius was?
Son of Apollo, greek warriors and a “blameless physician” in the Iliad (later god of a healing cult)
Athenian plaque (430 BCE)
killed thousands not only in greece, poss from egypt
-birds and animals affected?
cause unknown
fever thrist, painful pustular skin rash , rapid death
cost athens war with sparta
Greek Healer characterstics
may different kinds- no rules for healing practices- iatroi (“healers”)- mostly part-time
others: exorcist, folk-healers, root-cutters, priest healers
Asclepiads Clan
claimed ancestry to asclepius, son of apollo- hippocrates was born into an asclepiad on Cos- the Oath may be a pledge of fealty and Loyalty (hippocratic oath)
What is an abaton
Place of rest- like gym==not really like hospital
Pre- socratic philosphy- Pythagoras of Samon- 530 BCE
“Hippocratic” oath may actually be pythagorean
Pre- socratic philosphy- empedocles
postulated all things composed of elements- earth, air, fire, water==called “roots”
Pre- socratic philosphy- Alcmaeon- Croton 460 BCE
said to have been a pupil of pythagoras- first health was equilibrium between opposing body “humors” = fluids
first human dissection- described optic nerve
Hippocrates of Cos
Father of Modern Medicine
- corpus hippocraticum - medicine as a science and profession, discipline, rigorous, practice, careful observation & records–practionars were clean calm serious and honest–first to describe many diseases and medical conditions
mentions plato & aristotle
- “primum non nocere”
Corpus Hippocraticum- Greek Medicine
First time rejecting gods as cause of disease- facts over dogma, asserts physiology health and disease- rationally explainable
stresses observations over theory
expectative therapy- not active intervention
based on externals not internal anatomy
- deduced body functions by comparing body “microcosm” - tangible world– “macrocosm” - eye as lantern, stomach as oven
Health is equilibrium- hippocratic system
imbalance causes disease & restoring balance and health
Greek Medicine- Empedoclean
elements in macrocosm—fire earth, air, water
four “humors” (chymoi)
yellow bile, blood, phlegm, black bile—corresponds elements (also seasons, illnesses)
