P A R T 1 A N D 2

History of Medicine

8000 BC – Prehistoric Medicine

Rudimentary – cave paintings suggest early humans believed in spirits

Used rituals, prayers and ceremonies to cure disease

Spirit healers would cast spells to treat the sick

Drinking the blood of a wild animal would give special powers to the shaman to treat sickness

Trepanning

Bored a hole in the skull to let out evil spirits

Skulls show that these wounds would heal and that patients often survived

Trepanned Skull

2000 BC – Egyptian Medicine

First Pharmacists - used herbs and potions

They used many preparations including cannabis, opium, linseed oil and senna

Priests were doctors – used a combination of prayers and herbs

Gods were responsible for the health of different parts of the body.

Mummification of body

Embalmers would carefully remove body organs which were preserved in jars and buried with the mummified body

Mummification

450 BC – 300 AD – Romans and Greeks

Age of Reason Galen – techniques in Surgery Greek physician Illegal to dissect human bodies so he dissected animals to find out

how the body works.

Hygiene Link between dirt and disease Built aqueducts to supply clean water and sewers to remove wastes

Hippocrates Father of Modern Medicine Hippocratic Oath Four Humors – If a person was ill it was because they had an

inbalance with their humors Blood Phlegm Black Bile Yellow Bile

Aqueducts

500-1400 AD – Middle Ages

Determined by religion – cures were prayers, herbs and blood letting

Plague Biggest medical challenge

Started in Turkey

90% of the population was affected

Anesthetics used for surgery Opiates

disinfectants

Priests were doctors Traditional cures using herbs and potions

Prayer, repentance and sacrifice were cures

Bubonic Plague

700-1500 AD – Arabian Medicine

First Medical Book Written

By Ali al-Hysayn

Abd Allah Ibn Sina (Laws of Medicine)

Universal Healthcare

Clinics

Hospitals

Anatomical drawing from “Laws of Medicine”

1400 – 1700 The Renaissance

New Lands brought new medicine and new diseases

Hospitals were for the wealthy and they became the first medical schools

Circulation was discovered by William Harvey in 1628

Medical Research Idea of the 4 humors prevailed

Body was seen as the creation of God

Da Vinci

Dissected human bodies

Made the first anatomical drawings

DaVinci’s Vitruvian Man

1700 – 1900 – 18th and 19th Centuries

People’s understanding of the human body increased tremendously.

Scientific knowledge spread rapidly because scientists began publishing their work

Anton Van Leeuwenhoek invents microscope

Louis Pasteur discovers germs and bacteria

Microbiology is born

Increased knowledge of pathogenic microbes leads to the development of new medicines

The pharmaceutical industry is born

Leeuwenhoek’s Microscope

Louis Pasteur

17th -18th century (cont.)

Joseph Lister

Discovered that septicemia was mostly caused by infections caught during surgery and led to death

First to use antiseptic to clean wounds and surgical instruments

His antiseptic techniques reduced deaths from infection from 60% to 4%.

Florence Nightingale

Most famous nurse

Improved hygiene standards which reduced infections in hospitals

Set the foundations of hospital nursing care that are still practiced today

Nursing’s Shining Star: Florence Nightingale

17th – 18th Century (cont.)

1796 – Vaccinations

Edward Jenner developed the first vaccination

He deliberately infected an 8 year old boy with cowpox

Then he injected him with smallpox and the boy was protected by the earlier infection of cowpox

Vaccination was made compulsory

Smallpox was eradicated in 1977 when the last case of smallpox was reported.

Smallpox vaccines are no longer given

Person infected with smallpox

Ring around the Rosies

Ring around the rosies – praying on the rosary beads

A pocket full of posies – using posies scent to mask the scent of the disease

Ashes, Ashes – how the diseased people who had died were cremated and turned to ashes

They all fall down! – they all die!

Fun, cute little kids song…

17th – 18th Centuries (cont.)

1895 – X-Rays

Discovered by Wilhelm Roentgen

X-rays can pass through skin and muscle and are absorbed by dense tissue and bone creating an image on photographic film.

CT scan

Modern day xray machine that take simultaneous xrays from different angles.

Xray machine

CT (Computerized Tomography) Scan Machine

1900-2000 – The 20th Century

Vaccination is widely used for multiple childhood diseases.

Fleming discovers penicillin

Banting and Best discover that insulin can be used to treat diabetes

New medicines are produced every day through pharmaceutical research laboratories

Technology – MRI, bioengineering, artificial heart – first heart transplant performed by Dr. Christian Barnard in 1967, first test tube baby born on July 25, 1978 – Louise Brown, dialysis, cochlear implants and hearing aids

DNA research – Cloning, genetic engineering, human genome project

MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) Machine

2000 and beyond - 21st century medicine

Human genome project - Finding the sequence of DNA for every single gene in a complete set of human chromosomes.

Genetic therapies – being developed that aim to replace faulty genes and reverse the effects of inherited disorders

Ethics and medicine

Modern day outbreaks – Avian flu, H1N1, MERSA

What are the challenges?

Human Genome Project

Review Questions

What is trepanning?

What health problems might have followed trepanning?

Suggest why keeping medical records is an important part of developing new medical advances.

What are the 4 humors?

Suggest how outbreaks of infectious diseases are treated differently now, compared to the middle ages.

What was the major contribution of Arabic medicine?

How did explorers affect the development of medicine and also the new peoples that they visited?

Review Questions (cont.)

What were two major improvements in surgery during the 18th -19th centuries?

How did the smallpox vaccination work?

Describe the difference between an Xray, CT scan and MRI.

Suggest some medical developments which improve the quality of health and life, rather than being only life-saving.

Which type of microbe is killed by penicillin?

What are the ethical challenges in today’s medicine?