The Ancient World - MT1 - Part 6 Flashcards
What shifted with the Romans?
Science turned heavily toward encyclopedism and away from independent scientific thought and experiment
What were Romans interested in? (3)
- Civic duty
- Practical subjects
- Practiced matters
What was Greek the language of?
Intelligent people
What 2 lives did Pliny the Elder live?
- In the service of Roman Society and the Roman State
- lawyer, civil adminsitrator, military officer - Service of scholarship
- historian, encyclopedist
What did Pliny the Elder do?
Wrote a 37 vol encyclopedia
- included plenty of solid information and because a standard reference
What did Celsus do?
Wrote a large encyclopedia
- only the medicine portions survived
What did Celsus believe?
That a surgeon should assist nature
- same as Hippocrates
What is De Medicina?
One of the 1st medical books to be printed
- 1478
Who was Galen?
The most influential medical writer of all time
Who were the main backdrops to medicine? (3)
- Galen
- Avicenna
- Hippocrates
What was Galen early in his career?
A surgeon to the gladiatorial school at Pergamon
- good place to learn about traumatic wounds and hygiene
Cupping
Involves heating air inside an empty cup ad putting it on the patients skin and cooling it
- this is done to increase blood flow
What was Galen?
The most prestigious physician
- he was unpopular with other physicians because he had not earned their respect and was a know it all
What did Galen believe in?
One god
- he had a deep religious sense
- fiercely opposed atheistic materialism
What was Galen’s view on the human body? (3)
- Highly teleological
- He thought everything in the human body was there for a reason
- Thought the human body was perfect
Teleogical
The explanation of phenomena by the purpose they serve rather than by postulated causes
What did Galen insist on in medical practice?
Ethical practice
- believed physicians should scorn money and seek wisdom
How did Galen study human anatomy? (5)
- Anatomical information from Alexandrian anatomists
- Dissections of animals
- Inspection of patients with severe traumatic wounds
- Examination of bones from destroyed tombs
- Did a lot of experiments
What was the favourite animal for dissection?
The barbary ape
What did Galen think the voice was controlled by?
Laryngeal nerves that lead to the brain
- this supported the idea of the brain is the centre of thought and reason
What did Galen think arteries contained?
Blood
- not air
How did Galen learn what was inside of arteries? (3)
- Tied off an artery from a living specimen
- Isolated a section that shouldnt have blood in it
- Cut into it an blood came out
What did Galen think the kidney made?
Urine
- not the bladder
What did Galen discovered when cutting the spinal cords at different places? (3)
- Cutting between vertebrate 3-4 = no respiration
- Cutting below vertebrate 6 = paralysis of thoracic muscles
- Cutting even lower = paralysis of lower limbs, bladder and intestine
What did Galen believe about blood?
That it did not circulate
- moves from site of synthesis to tissues
Tidal flow
Blood sloshing back and forth
What does venous blood do?
Distributes food
How does venous blood enter the arterial system?
Through pores connecting the right and left ventricles
What does arterial blood distribute?
Pneuma
What does pneuma provide?
Warmth and movement
- living function that food does not have
What are 4 therapies Galen believed in?
- Balance of humours with diet
- Balance humours with bloodletting and purging
- Surgery
- Complex drugs
What were complex drugs made out of? (2)
- Vapours flesh
- Bat poop
ect. ..
What were the scientific legacies of the ancient world? (5)
- Spirit of natural, rational thought and inquiry
- Natural history
- Pragmatic, ethical medicine
- treated whole people instead of parts because if you were sick, so was your whole body - Dogmatic adherence to ancient authorities
- The first job of modern science were to assimilate ancient science and then travel beyond or over throw the most influential ancients
