medicine through time Flashcards
an ancient greek philosopher who believed everything in the world was made up of four elements: fire, water, earth and air.
aristotle
greek physician who developed the theory that the body was made up of four humours. if they were out of balance this would make you sick.
hippocrates
roman physician and surgeon. he developed the the theory of opposites that suggested to re-balance the humours, you would need to give someone an item that the was the opposite of the problem the person had. for example, got a cold? eat a hot pepper! he also made some surgical breakthroughs such as discovering the nervous system linked to the brain as well making many errors. for example, he believed the human jaw bone was made of two parts, it is in fact in one part.
galen
medieval britain
1000-1500
william the conqueror
when he conquered England in 1066, he brought a nursing system to England that emphasised the role of churches as a place that cares for the sick.
pope innocent lll
good example of an exact pope to use if you are trying to emphasise the power that the catholic church had over everyday life. he is a pope that you need to know about for the king richard and king john (1189-1216) course.
henry vlll
ordered the shutting down of monasteries in 1536, which led to the shutting down of a number of hospitals in england and a weakening of the power of the church.
1500-1700
renaissance
the first to theorise that the body was made up of chemicals and that chemicals could be created to cure sickness. he experimented with chemicals such as arsenic and mercury.
paracelsus
in 1543, he published “the fabric of the human body”. this corrected many of galen’s mistakes to do with the anatomy (structure) of the body.
vesalius
developed the theory of contagion, that diseases were contagious. he published “on contagion” in 1546.
francastoro
individuals who were responsible for putting money up for bringing fresh water to the city of london in the 17th century.
edmund colthurst and hugh myddleton
he developed the correct theory of circulation in the early 1600s, how blood pumped around the body.
william harvey
he claimed in 1648 that digestion happened because of stomach acid, not because of anything to do with the four humours.
van helmont
wrote the observationes medicae (1676). This was a direct challenge to the very basis of the four humours. sydenham theorised that disease happened because of things attacking the body, not because of imbalances within it.
thomas sydenham
he developed the first microscope with funding from the royal society. In 1702, he published images of what he called “animalcules”. the were in fact germs.
antonie van leeuwenhoek
18 century
1700 - 1800
lady mary montague
she observed the use of variolation (inoculation) in Asia and introduced it to Britain.
edward jenner
developed the first vaccination, for smallpox, through observing milkmaids who seemed to be immune to it from contracting cowpox - a milder disease from the same family of diseases.
1800 - 1900
the 19th century
he published a report in 1842, that suggested the government needed to do more for the poor in big cities as a way of dealing with big outbreaks of illness.
edwin chadwick
he developed the first popular anesthetic, after discovering chloroform had the ability to make you unconscious for periods of time.
james simpson
improved hospital training and conditions after experiencing how bad things were in the crimean war of 1853.
florence nightingale
he made chloroform safer by inventing a dispenser. later, in 1854, he used an outbreak of cholera in soho, london to prove the link between water and that disease.
john snow
