WEEK 12 (18th century) Flashcards
What did almost all scientist and physicians believe?
The root of all problems lay in imbalances
Which categories did Herman Boerhaave classify disorders?
- Imbalance of “solids”
- Imbalance of “blood and humours”
What is Herman Boerhaave known for?
- Proposed that medical students learnt more from bedside teaching
- Bad health = results from mechanical imbalances
- Bloodletting was used to rebalance “solid” imbalances
What is George Ernst Stahl known for?
- Believed that the soul was at the heart of everything
- Felt that psyche directed the body and regulated physiology
- Disease was the soul’s attempt to reestablish bodily order
What is John Brown known for?
- All diseases as either increasing or decreasing “excitement”
- Against bloodletting
- Alcohol and opium as remedies
What is William Cullen known for?
- Life was a function of nervous energy and disease was disturbance in this life force
- Acknowledged that understanding of disease transfer was still missing
- Disease could be classified into: FEBRILE DISEASES, NEUROSES/NERVOUS DISEASES, DISEASES PRODUCED BY BAD BODILY HABITS & LOCAL DISEASES
What was Franz Anton Mesmer known for?
He popularised MESMERISM
[A healing method based on his belief that all things were connected by a subtle and mobile fluid that pervades the universe -> When the fluid within the body is blocked, the result is disease]
What is the importance of Franz Anton Mesmer?
- Medical studies @ University of Venna
- Doctoral dissertation was about the influence of planets on the human body and disease
- Believed that people contained MAGNETISME ANIMAL -> this force had to be kept flowing smoothly
Who ordered Benjamin Franklin to investigate Mesmer?
Louis XVI
What is Phrenology and who created it?
Phrenology = Bumps of the head reflected compartmentalised mental “organs” underneath, corresponding to personality traits
Franz Joseph Gall (1758-1828)
What is Homeopathy?
A medical treatment involving minute doses of drugs
[based on the theory that substances that cause certain symptoms in a healthy person can- in small amounts- cure those symptoms in a person with the disease]
What was Hahnemann known for?
- Deduced that the key to stimulating healing rather than a toxic response had to do with using minute amounts of the drugs in other compounds
- People disliked his advocacy of a reduction in the use of drugs
Why did Surgery remain inferior to medicine?
Because it was seen as manual labor
Who changed the perspective of surgery so that it was no longer seen as inferior to medicine?
John Hunter
[brought descriptive research and fanatical devotion to anatomical detail to surgery]
What was John Hunter known for?
- Need for specimens turned body snatching from an occasional activity into an entire industry to supply him (Reached its pinnacle in the story of Irish Giant, Charles Byrne)
- Anticipated Darwin’s description of evolution
- Experimented on himself (tendon repair, wound healing, chlamydia, syphilis, agina)
- Died from myocardial infarction while rushing towards a mirror so that he could write down notes on his appearance as it occurred
