They died from Warfare,
Pregnancy and childbirth,
Infection, Famine and
food shortage
Mainly, they believed that evil spirits
caused illness
They believed in trepanning,
where they would drill a hole
into the skull to release evil
spirits to make someone feel
better when they were ill
They also used medicine men who
would dress up like animals to
scare the evil spirits away
Prehistoric people used herbal remedies
made from herbs and flowers found
around them to treat ailments and
injuries
Ancient Egypt
In ancient Egypt, the
country was an
agricultural one, which
helped stem many
theories of the body
The river Nile made some believe
that the body is full of channels,
and if one channel became
blocked, you became ill
They used purging, vomiting and
blood letting to unblock the
channels
They also believed Gods
could cure and cause
disease
Egyptians believed in mummification
They believed that you needed the
body for the afterlife
They prepared bodies by extracting soft
organs such as the brain and the intestines,
then drying what remained with salt. This
gave the Egyptians some knowledge of
anatomy.
They believed that destroying someone’s body meant that
they wouldn’t go to the afterlife, so experimental
dissection was not allowed. This limited the amount of
knowledge that could be gained.
New herbs were used as
medicines
They had specialist doctors who looked for logical
causes of disease and could identify some parts of
the body
Cleanliness was valued. They bathed,
shaved their heads and had toilets
Ancient
Greece
Wealthier people could employ
doctors.
Improvements in the strength of materials helped to make better
surgical instruments.
Aristotle suggested the body was made up of four
humours
blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile.
They need to be in balance for good
health.
You could get rid of an excess humour
by purging, vomiting or blood-letting.
Hippocrates
He believed in natural causes of disease, and encouraged doctors
to treat illness using natural methods.
The Hippocratic Oath is a promise made by doctors to obey rules of
behaviour in their professional lives.
The Hippocratic Corpus is a collection of medical
books
Hippocrates also came up with the “clinical method of observation”
which involved looking at the patient's symptoms and then treating
them
The
Asclepion
Visitors bathed and relaxed, prayed to
Asclepios
Asclepion was a temple where sick
people would go to heal and pray to
the God of healing, Asclepius.
An abaton was a building with a roof but no walls. Whilst sleeping a god
came come to them in a dream and cured them.
Priests also did “ward rounds”, performing rituals which involved placing snakes on the
patients.
Ancient
Rome
Noticed that bad smells,
unclean drinking water,
sewage, swamps and dirt
made people become ill.
They built public baths, toilets and sewers to
remove waste.
They build aqueducts to carry clean water into
cities.
Galen
Galen was a Greek physician. He believed Hippocrates
theory was correct, that illness was caused by imbalances
of the four humours
He developed the idea of opposite humours for counter-balancing the body’s humours.
He found that the arteries, as well as veins, carry blood through the
body.
However, Galen made mistakes because he had to use only
animals. He said there were holes in the septum of the heart
which would let blood pass from right to the left side & that
the blood was consumed rather than circulated.
Romans were not as interested as the Greeks in
developing theories about the causes of disease.
Doctors were too expensive
for most people, so they
used home remedies
The most common surgical treatment was bleeding & Internal
operations were still rare because they were too risky.
Medieval
Medieval doctors believed illness was caused by an
imbalance of the four humours. The theory developed into
a more complex system, based on the position of the
stars, they believed the stars caused disease and relied on
astrology when deciding on treatments
Monasteries controlled education, priests and monks
were the only people who could read. The Church opened
medical schools where the ideas of Galen were taught
because he referred to “the creator” in his works., they
banned books they did not want people to read.
Medical care for the poor came from hospitals set up by monasteries and run by
monks and nuns. They provided “hospitality” for visitors, however, genuinely ill people
were turned away due to fear of disease spreading.
In the Middle Ages, there was great demand for
surgery because of warfare but because it still
had such low regard, it was mainly performed
by barbers
The Black Death
the black death arrived in Britain by 1348,
it was spread by coughing and sneezing,
started by black rat's flea bites.
What they thought caused it and how they treated it
Miasma – carried sweet smelling herbs, sat between two large fires.
God – tried to appease god by praying, or whipping themselves as a punishment
Humours out of balance – use of opposites, purging, vomiting and
blood letting.
Poisoned water – blamed the Jews.
Towns lacked the public health
schemes of the Romans.
Renaissance
Andreas Vesalius – Anatomy
Did his own dissections and wrote books based on his observations using
accurate diagrams to illustrate his work
He was able to point out some of Galen’s mistakes.
there were no holes in
the septum of the heart
the jaw bone is not made up of
two bones
Studied anatomy, became professor of surgery and anatomy at Padua
Ambroise Paré – Surgery
Paré was a battlefield surgeon; this was still a low status profession.
In battle, he ran out of boiling oil which was used for treating gunshot wounds. Paré made an old Roman
ointment of roses, turpentine and egg yolk, he was amazed to find out the soldier was still alive in the
morning
Paré develops ligatures to seal wounds instead of using a cauterising iron.
Carried out an experiment to disprove Galen
the bezoar stone isn’t a treatment for position
William Harvey – Circulation of the Blood
Disproves Galen's ideas
Proves the heart is a pump for blood
Identifies the difference between arteries and veins.
Discovers the circulation of the blood,
To spread his ideas he writes “An Anatomical Account of the Motion of the Heart and Blood”.
Becomes doctor the King, his
ideas are very influential.
However, bleeding operations still continue after Harvey as people are unsure of what else to do.
Blood groups are discovered in 1901, which makes blood transfusions successful.
The Great Plague of 1665
The death toll in London was about
100, 000.
Efforts were made to control the spread of disease. Households were locked in and red crosses were
painted on their doors with the words, “Lord have mercy upon us.”
People realised disease was contagious, but they still didn’t understand about germs causing disease.
The Great Fire of London in 1666 effectively sterilised large parts of London