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)
Hippocratic Medicine Features
Patient-oriented—favored “regimen” not drugs, including
- proper diet, enough sleep, exercise, right living to alter disease process, athletic training—diagnosis involved profiling patients diet dweilling and work habits
Hippocratic Medicine- placed most emphasis on
prognosis- look of dying
expectative therapy= healing power of nature
Hippocratic medicine - dissapproves of
heroic interventions- risky procedures “cuting for stone” - certain other surgeries
The four Humors
yellow bile, phlegm, blood and black bile
yellow bile
excess causes summer dysentery and vomiting
phlegm
causes winter colds and epilepsy
blood
associated with life- plentiful in springtime, expelled via menstruation, nature removes excess,—reason for venisection?
Venisection
bleeding to cure
Black bile
Later addition, form of yllow bile? dried blood?
