Filed under: 1st 9 weeks
8000 BC Prehistoric medicine
q Most of what we know comes from archaeologist who have excavated and explored ancient sites
q Cave paintings and symbolic artifacts suggest the earliest humans believed in spirits and supernatural forces.
q Shamans were men and women who would call upon the sprits to bring good hunting or heal the sick were possibly the first doctors.
q Ancient skulls have been found with a hole bored into them trepanning possibly to allow the evil spirits to leave a sick person.
2000 BC ancient Egyptian medicine
q Egyptians built pyramids to bury their Pharaohs and worshipped gods who ruled every aspect of their lives.
q Had doctors who specialized in treating particular parts of the body as well as researching the properties of herbal medicines
q Kept detailed records of the symptoms and treatments of illnesses formed some of the first medical textbooks
q Religious beliefs dominated the ancient Egyptians view of healing. Believed illness was due to the presence of evil spirits or poisons. Prayer or pleasing the gods with gifts was the only way to cure the disease.
q Ancient Egyptians had pharmacist who prepared prescriptions or ointments, potions, inhalers and pills by processing plant materials used to treat specific illnesses. Used opium, cannabis, linseed oil
q Egyptians believed in an afterlife. They mummified the bodies of Pharaohs and important people
400 BC to 300 AD Greeks and Romans
q Greece was home to one of the earliest civilizations
q Tried to understand their world in more scientific way
q Hippocrates philosopher, father of modern medicine possibly most famous name in medicine
q Hippocratic oath still used today
q Conventional thinking was that diseases were sent as punishment from gods, treatments aimed at pleasing the gods to get them to cure disease
q Hippocrates went against this conventional thinking and looked on body as having a balance and the lack of balance led to disease.
q Romans:
- Conquered the Greeks and brought a lot of their ideas about healthcare into use across the Roman Empire.
- Realized link between dirt and disease
- Built aqueducts to supply clean water and sewers to remove waste
q Galen a Greek physician dissected animals to find out how their bodies worked, it was illegal to dissect humans. His knowledge led to improved techniques in surgery and new instruments
500-1400 middle ages
q Fall of the Roman Empire meant that many of public hygiene practices were soon lost
q People without access to clean drinking water, regular bathing or sewage system-starvation and disease were common
q Medicine dominated by religion, sickness believed punishment from God for sins committed must pray for forgiveness
q Doctors’ usually religious scholars-traditional cures, using herbal remedies and potions were seen as witchcraft and outlawed by the church
q Laws were developed that required training in order to practice medicine
q 1347 outbreak of bubonic plague (highly contagious pneumonia) considered punishment from God so nothing done to control rats that infested villages and towns carry the disease
NOTE: (Compare to modern day plague SARS severe respiratory syndrome. How would our interventions differ, how do our beliefs influence this?)
700-1500 Arabic medicines
q After the fall of the Roman Empire Arabic world was center of scientific knowledge
q Refined Hippocrates theories and Islamic physicians began to use the regulation of diet, exercise and prescription of medicinal herbs to treat patients
q Large hospitals were involved in training and licensing doctors and pharmacists (in Europe medicine was still governed by religion and superstition)
q Used anesthetics by soaking sponges in narcotic drugs and placing over patients nose
q Book Laws of Medicine written by Ali al-Husayn great influence for hundreds of years
1400-1700 The Renaissance
q Medicine dominated by the teachings of the church but physicians began to learn more about the human body, began to look at anatomy in a scientific and systematic way
q Andreas Vesalius and Leonardo Da Vinci dissected human bodies and made the first anatomical drawings
q Church did not permit dissection of “God fearing” bodies so it was often the bodies of criminals or “sinners” that were used, sometimes criminal was alive at beginning of dissection was a part of the punishment
q William Harvey new theory heart acts as muscular pump circulated blood
q New medicines developed, quinine & tobacco (thought to be medicinal at this time) laudanum an opium-based painkiller was used for many disorders
q New continents explored and trade between different parts of the world increased & it allowed the global spread of disease
q Bubonic plague moved along trade routes from china and killed more than a third of Europe’s population
q Spanish colonized South America and brought smallpox which killed many native Aztecs and Incas
q Majority of people too poor to be treated by trained doctors only major cities had hospitals
q Surgical instruments were basic, drill, saw, forceps and pliers for removing teeth, if surgeon not available usually the local barber performed operations and removed teeth
1700-1900 18th and 19th centuries
q Industrial revolution saw a massive change in where people lived moved from small villages and agricultural lifestyle to towns and cities that sprang up around the new factories, lived in dirty overcrowded conditions poor sanitation and drinking water
q Disease such as cholera, tuberculosis, measles and pneumonia spread quickly and was life threatening
q Two big medical advances vaccinations and x-rays
q Van Leeuwenhoek made one of the earliest microscopes English scientist Hooke used this to observe cells for the first time
q Discoveries by Pasteur and Koch led to understanding that infections were caused by bacteria or germs.
q Florence Nightingale, mother of modern day nursing worked in military hospital during Crimean war conditions were poor and 80% died from infections caught in the hospital. Florence Nightingale improved hygiene and dramatically reduced the infections in hospitals.
q Edward Jenner pioneered earliest vaccinations for smallpox 200 years later the World Health Organization (WHO) started a vaccination program with the aim of eradicating smallpox. Smallpox estimated to have killed 500 million people in last century. Last documented case in Africa 1977. WHO announced the end of smallpox in 1980
NOTE: there are two highly guarded stocks of the virus in laboratories in the USA and Russia, preserved for research purposes
1900-2000 20th Century
q 1928 Alexander Fleming using work that Joseph Lister had started in 1871 found that he could stop the growth of bacteria in the lab; he cultivated the pennicillium mould and investigated its properties on bacteria that caused diseases such as anthrax, meningitis and diphtheria
q Fleming’s discovery was not fully developed until World War II when so many soldiers were dying from infections that 2 researchers at Oxford university were given the task of finding new medicines to treat wounded soldiers; grew large amounts of the penicillium mould and it was used to treat infections during the war
q Before antibiotics a simple throat infection could easily spread to the lungs and throughout the body
NOTE: unnecessary use of antibiotics is leading to the evolution of strains of bacteria that are able to survive all but the most powerful antibiotics-SUPERBUGS especially in hospitals
q Significant improvements in diagnosis and treatment to include improved surgical techniques and use of technology in medicine have increased the life span from 47 years old in 1901 to 77 years in 2000.
q Vaccinations are now widespread and used to prevent diseases such as yellow fever, polio, measles, mumps, chicken pox and rubella
q Medical imagining has improved significantly since the first x-rays, magnetic resonance imagery (MRI) ultrasound, computer tomography (CAT scans) lead to early diagnosis and treatment increasing the rate of cures
q DNA unlocking secrets held within our bodies
q 1st heart transplant Dr. Christian Barnard 1967
q 1st in vitro fertilization Louise Brown born July 25th, 1978
21st Century Predictions for the future