Medicine through time

• Theory of Four Humours - put forward by Greek Physician Hippocrates, a theory that the universe is made up of four elements and the body is made up of four humours and you became ill if they were ever unbalanced.
• Yellow bile (hot and dry) - summer

  Black bile (cold and dry) - autumn

  Blood (hot and moist) - spring

  Phlegm - (cold and moist) - winter
• Roman physician Galen used animals to study human anatomy and came up with the theory of opposites. For example if you had a phlegmy cough, it should be balanced by eating something hot e.g. a pepper
• Ideas about cause in Medieval times

  • Punishment sent from God
  • Four humours
  • Miasma (bad smelling air)
  • Astrology (position of stars would affect our lives)
• Church in Medieval times

  • Controlled education and printing of books
  • Belief in heaven/hell
  • Church trained physicians
  • Extremely rich and powerful
• Treatments in Medieval times

  • Religious - prayer, pilgrimage, saying mass, fasting (some believed that as it is a punishment sent from God then we shouldn't treat it)
  • Blood letting - (cutting, leeching, cupping) done by barber-surgeon and allowed bad humours to be removed
  • Purging - removed any leftover food that was causing the imbalance in humours by using an emetic to make you vomit or a laxative
  • Herbal remedies and bathing - only the rich could bathe
• Prevention in Medieval times

  • Prayer
  • Maintaining hygiene (to remove miasma) and bathing
  • Purifying the air - carry a sweet smelling 'posy', measures taken to keep towns clean)
  • Regimen Sanitatis - set of instructions (moderate exercise, sleep, no overeating)
• Who cared for the sick in Medieval times

  • Physicians - trained at university, very expensive, wouldn't treat you so just sent you to an apothecary or barber-surgeon
  • Apothecary - mixed herbal remedies, knowledge passed through the family, cheaper than physicians
  • Baber-surgeon - taught from family/experience, carried out minor surgery, used vein man to perform bleeding
  • Wise women - healed at home, well respected, treatment ranged from comfort to making remedies
• Hospitals in the Medieval times

  • Funded by church, staffed by nuns and monks
  • Sponsors of the church could get a prayer if they were dying
  • Rejected terminal patients
  • Care not cure
  • Surroundings kept clean and bed linen was kept fresh
  • Shared beds
• The Black Death (1348)

  Killed 1/3 of the population, bubonic plague - spread by fleas on rats, pneumonic plague - spread by coughing

  • Cause - punishment from God , imbalance of humours
  • Treatment - Prayer, Flagellation (whipping), fires to prevent miasma, lancing buboes, herbs
  • Prevention - pilgrimage, escape area, carry a posy of flowers, quarantined, avoid bathing, stopped cleaning streets (drive off miasma)
• During the Renaissance, new theories weren't accepted because they were only theories. However, humanism was introduced and they rejected the Christian view that God is responsible for everything as people began to look for new explanations.
• Treatment

  • Bleeding and purging still used
  • Religion - King has power to heal due to divine right
  • Herbs
  • Transference - transfer the disease onto another object
  • Alchemy - experimented with metals to cure
• Thomas Sydenham

  • Observed symptoms instead of relying in old medical books
  • Based treatments on disease not individual symptoms
  • Believed diseases had nothing to do with the nature of the person
• The printing press was invented in 1440 which allowed new information to be spread accurately and quickly without the interference from the church
• Royal Society (1660) - aimed to carry out the experiments to deepen their understanding of science and share knowledge and became a platform where people could share their ideas
• Vesalius

  • Carried out dissections on humans
  • 'On the Fabric of the Human Body' - his second book
  • Proved Galen wrong -> vena cava did not lead to the liver -> human breastbone was in two parts not seven
  • Anatomy began to be a centre of medicine and doctors began to dissect not just surgeons
  • Inspired other anatomists