medicine through time

• medieval beliefs on cause


  god had sent illnesses to punish you

  bad air (miasma)

  1 of the 4 humours was out of balance
• medieval beliefs on prevention


  prayer

  purifying the air
• medieval beliefs on treatment


  prayer

  balancing the 4 humours, via purging, bleeding, etc.

  herbal remedies
• Medical Renaissance beliefs on cause


  god

  miasma (bad air)

  4 humours out of balance
• Medical Renaissance beliefs on prevention


  purifying the air

  prayer
• Medical Renaissance beliefs on treatment


  prayer

  herbal remedies

  simple operations carried out by barber surgeons
• Industrial Revolution beliefs on cause


  miasma

  germ theory (1861 by Louis Pasteur)
• Industrial Revolution beliefs on prevention


  vaccination
• Industrial Revolution beliefs on treatment


  herbal remedies
• Medieval Period


  1250-1500
• Medical Renaissance


  1500-1700
• Medieval Ideas about causes


  Punishment from God. Miasma. Imbalance of the four humours
• Medieval ideas about treatment


  Prayer. Herbal Remedies
• Medieval ideas about prevention


  Keeping streets/water supplies clean
• Renaissance ideas about causes


  Punishment from god. Miasma. Imbalanced humours
• Renaissance ideas about Treatment


  Prayer. Herbal remedies. Bleeding/purging. External operations
• Renaissance ideas about prevention


  Cleaning streets/water supplies. Quarantining the sick. Dissecting dead bodies to learn
• 18th-19th century ideas about causes


  • Germ theory
  • Miasma
• 18th-19th century ideas about treatment


  Herbal remedies
• 18th-19th century ideas about prevention


  • Smallpox vaccination
  • Antiseptic
  • Sewers
  • Clean water
• Modern ideas about causes


  • DNA
  • Germs
  • Genetics
• Modern ideas about treatment


  • Antibiotic
  • Chemical drugs
  • Blood transfusions
• Modern ideas about prevention


  • NHS
  • Knowledge
  • Research
• Black Death


  1348
• Vesalius publishes The Fabric of the Human Body

  1543
• William Harvey publishes his book on blood circulation

  1628
• Great Plague of London


  1665
• Thomas Sydenham publishes Observations Medicae


  1676
• Edward Jenner develops first vaccine


  1796
• James Simpson discovers chloroform


  1847
• Joseph lister uses carbolic acid in surgery


  1865
• Louis Pasteur Germ Theory


  1861
• John Snow discovers the significance of the broad street pump causing cholera


  1854
• Karl Landsteiner discovers blood groups


  1901
• Second Public Health Act


  1875. It is made compulsory to

  • improve sewers and the removal of waste
  • provide clean water
  • appoint medical officers to inspect public health facilities
• The Church in Medieval England


  Priests wrote all the books dictating medical knowledge so everybody had to be religious.
• Fleming discovers penicillin

  1928
• First Magic bullet

  1909- the Salvarsan 606

  • This was the 606th compound of Salvarsan (a drug containing arsenic), so it gave the drug its name.
  • Salvarsan 606 was able to kill the bacteria that cause syphilis
• NHS introduced

  1948
• Human Genome Project began

  1990