Lands of cures and explorations
An Exploration of the Development and Evolution of Medicine
The Beginning of It All
Greece, Oh Greece
But Hippocrates alone made a tremendous impression on medical history! Aristotle and Plato wrote of him! He wrote some of the Hippocratic Collection, a collection of sixty medical books. In these books, he wrote of how doctors should observe a man's face first and foremost, as ""First of all the doctor should look at the patient’s face. If he looks his usual self this is a good sign. If not, however, the following are bad signs – sharp nose, hollow eyes, cold ears, dry skin on the forehead, strange face colour such as green, black, red or lead coloured. If the face is like this at the beginning of the illness, the doctor must ask the patient if he has lost sleep, or had diarrhoea, or not eaten."
From "On forecasting diseases".
In fact, he and other doctors worked on the assumption that diseases were naturally caused, instead of supernaturally; and his ideas of this and many others spread to the Eastern Mediterranean.
Rome, Student of Greece
They drained marshes to get rid of disease bearing mosquitoes and built cities/forts near springs so as to be near clean water. As cities grew, they built aqueducts to supply these large clusters with more clean water. They also used public baths and had public toilets- a great insight in the idea of good hygiene leading to good health.
The Middle Ages
New practices were made, such as blood letting, or getting rid of 'excess' blood with a leech or a small cut. Diagnosis was also now linked to the astrology signs- for example, if you were a Leo, incisions of the nerves were to be avoided, along with not cutting the back by opening or bleeding! Of course, any remedies were still crude, primitive, and ineffective.
Plagues, Oh My!
WWII and Meds
After the Wars
Discovers, Researchers, and Doctors Throughout History
Claudius Galen
- He helped revive Hippocrates'/Greek doctors practices/methods in Rome
- He accepted the view that disease was a result of an imbalance of phlegm, blood, yellow and blood bile.
- Extended his knowledge of anatomy by dissecting pigs and apes.
GIOVANNI MORGAGNI
- He is seen as the Father of Pathology
- He studied the differences between a healthy body and unhealthy body anatomy-wise and linked the abnormalities observed in the bodies to symptoms
- He studied the impact of stroke, blood clots, and syphilis
- His work 'De Sedibus et Causis Morburum Per Anatomen' is credited with pushing the boundaries so that anatomical pathology became a recognised science
WILLIAM HARVEY
- Discovered the flow of blood must be continuous and in one direction only.
Antoine Lavoisier
- Discovered respiration is the process of taking oxygen up by blood into the lungs.
EDWARD JENNER
- created the vaccine for smallpox.
IGNAZ SEMMELWEIS
- Drastically improved sanitation between physicians
- (made them wash their hands with a solution).
- Joseph Lister made similar accomplishments
Louis Pasteur
- Showed that airborn microbes were the cause of disease.
- Helped to develop a variety of vaccines.
Many many more doctors/scientists
- Robert Koch (destroyed the bad air myth and investigated TB and anthrax)
- Marie Curie (research in radiation)
- Wilhelm Roentgen (discovered what are now called X-rays)
- Alexander Fleming (discovered penicillin/antibiotics)
- Christian Barnard (performed the first open heart transplant)
A short video showing a brief explanation of medicine's history
sources
http://www.scribemedia.org/2007/09/20/health-20-conference/
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/history_of_medicine.htm
Literally everything is from the 2nd link because they had extensive information