MEDICINE THROUGH TIME

• Miasma


  The belief that diseases were caused by 'bad air'
• Humours


  The four bodily fluids (blood, yellow bile, black bile, phlegm) whose balance was believed to determine health
• Preventing illness in medieval England


  1. Praying

  2. Going on pilgrimage

  3. Living an honest, religious life

  4. Flagellants whipping themselves

  5. Wearing charms

  6. Purifying the air

  7. Maintaining a balanced lifestyle
• Treating illness in medieval England


  1. Praying

  2. Balancing the humours (bloodletting, laxatives, purging)

  3. Taking herbal remedies

  4. Using superstitious treatments

  5. Applying the theory of opposites

  6. Checking the alignment of planets
• Hippocrates


  Ancient Greek physician who developed the theory of the four humours and told doctors to observe patients
• Galen


  Ancient Roman physician who supported the theory of the four humours, added the theory of opposites, and wrote books on anatomy
• The Church supported the ideas of Hippocrates and Galen and prevented human dissections, meaning their ideas could not be questioned
• Most medical care in medieval England was provided at home by family members or local wise women
• Hospitals in medieval England were usually for old people and rarely for the sick, and were run by the Church
• Physicians in medieval England were very expensive and trained at universities, where they listened to Galen's books being read aloud
• Barber surgeons in medieval England performed bloodletting and basic surgery without anaesthetics or antiseptics
• The Black Death (1348) killed about 40% of people in England
• During the Black Death, the government tried to prevent it spreading through quarantine laws, but local government did not have enough power to enforce these laws
• Vesalius


  Anatomist who dissected human bodies and disproved over 200 of Galen's ideas
• Harvey


  Physician who dissected animals and proved Galen was wrong about the circulation of blood and the function of the heart
• Sydenham


  Physician known as the 'English Hippocrates' who argued that illnesses could not all be understood with one theory like the four humours, and told doctors to carefully observe their patients' symptoms
• After the dissolution of the monasteries, there were fewer hospitals in England, although some charitable hospitals were established, now run by physicians rather than monks
• Pest houses were introduced for people with particular diseases such as leprosy or the plague
• Most people in the Renaissance were still cared for at home by women, and there were still barber surgeons and apothecaries
• Physicians in the Renaissance were still expensive, but did now train on hospital wards and do dissections
• The Church had less power in the Renaissance, and there was an emphasis on scientific approaches of asking questions, observation and dissections
• The printing press meant that new ideas could be spread more accurately and quickly, and the Church had less control over information
• The Royal Society was a group of scientists who met to discuss their ideas and findings, and had laboratories for experiments
• By the end of the Renaissance, physicians like Sydenham stopped believing in the four humours, but most ordinary people still believed in many ideas of the medieval era
• New treatments in the Renaissance


  • Alchemists experimenting with chemical cures such as mercury
  • Transference (putting a chicken on buboes to transfer the sickness)
  • Using tobacco to prevent and treat illnesses
• The Great Plague (1665) killed 75,000 people in London, and traditional ideas about the causes were the same: the four humours, religion, planets and miasma
• During the Great Plague, families of a sick person had to quarantine for 28 days, their house was marked with a red cross, and watchmen enforced this
• During the Great Plague, some doctors wore a bird mask with sweet-smelling herbs to block miasma, and barrels of tar were burned to block miasma
• During the Industrial Revolution, many people moved from villages to slums in newly-built cities, and disease spread quickly
• For most of the Industrial Revolution, people still believed in miasma and continued to burn barrels of tar and wear lucky charms to try to prevent diseases like cholera
• People still used herbal remedies and new branded patent medicines to treat illness during the Industrial Revolution
• Jenner


  English doctor who realised that dairy maids rarely got smallpox, and experimented with using cowpox to prevent smallpox, publishing his work in 1798
• The government gave Jenner £30,000 to open a clinic after he published his work on the smallpox vaccine
• Snow


  Doctor who plotted deaths from cholera on the Ghost Map and realised that the water pump on Broad Street in London was infected, showing that cholera was waterborne
• Nightingale


  Nurse who cleaned hospitals, changed bedding and provided good meals, leading to a fall in the death rate from 40% to 2%, and published 'Notes on Nursing' which led to the training of nurses
• Pasteur


  Scientist who proved spontaneous generation wrong and realised from his experiments that germs cause decay and illness
• Koch


  Scientist who identified that different germs cause many different diseases, using agar jelly, petri dishes, powerful microscopes and chemical dyes
• Pasteur and Koch then found vaccines for diseases including anthrax, TB and rabies
• Improvements in surgery during the Industrial Revolution


  1. Use of ether as an anaesthetic

  2. Use of chloroform as a safer anaesthetic

  3. Lister's use of carbolic acid as the first antiseptic

  4. Development of aseptic surgery with sterilised instruments and surgeons wearing gloves and scrubs
• In the early 1800s, the government had a laissez-faire approach to public health, but gradually became more involved, such as giving Jenner funding and passing public health acts