Gage more & Health Care History timeline

Plant materials (herbs and substances derived from natural sources) were among the treatments for diseases in prehistoric cultures. Earths and clays may have provided prehistoric peoples with some of their first medicines. Trepanning (sometimes Trephining) was a basic surgical operation carried out, predominantly by medicine men. They also used "magic" in some surgeries and they also used very underdeveloped dentistry techniques.

Ancient Greek medicine began to revolve around the theory of humors. Humoral theory states that good health comes from perfect balance of the four humors blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. Consequently, poor health resulted from improper balance of the four humors. Hippocrates and his students documented numerous illnesses in the Hippocratic Corpus, and developed the Hippocratic Oath for physicians, which is still in use today. They also added on to Egyptian theories.

The medicine of the ancient Egyptians is some of the oldest documented. From the beginnings of the civilization in the late fourth millennium BC until the Persian invasion of 525 BC, Egyptian medical practice went largely unchanged but was highly advanced for its time, including simple non-invasive surgery, setting of bones, dentistry, and an extensive set of pharmacopoeia. They also were partially aware of the importance of a healthy diet.

Medicine in ancient Rome combined various techniques using different tools, methodology, and ingredients. Roman medicine was highly influenced by Greek medicine. Greek physicians including Dioscorides and Galen practiced medicine and recorded their discoveries in the Roman Empire. These two physicians had knowledge of hundreds of herbal, among other, medicines. Ancient Roman medicine was divided into specializations such as ophthalmology and urology.

Doctors wrote the earliest known Chinese medical writing, The Recipes for Fifty-Two Ailments, about 186 BC. The recipes suggest chanting spells, herbal medicines, lancing (cutting the skin open) and cauterization (burning the flesh) as cures for things like warts and snake bites and possession by demons (mental illness).

By the fourth century the concept of a hospital – a place where patients could be treated by doctors with access to specialized equipment – was emerging in parts of the Roman Empire. The first pharmacy was established in Baghdad in the year 754. As one medieval Arabic physician said these were places for “the art of knowing the materia medica simples in their various species, types and shapes.medieval physicians were conducting experiments and examining the anatomy of the human body.

The development of autopsy allowed society to use it for forensic and health purposes. Leonardo da Vinci made many contributions in the fields of science and technology. His research centered around his desire to learn more about how the human brain processes visual and sensory information and how that connects to the soul. He studied vision and he researched the role of the spinal cord in humans by studying frogs which lead to him finding out many other things about the human body.

The Middle Ages contributed a great deal to medical knowledge. This period contained progress in surgery, medical chemistry, dissection, and practical medicine. The Middle Ages laid the ground work for later, more significant discoveries. Many discoveries during the middle ages were influenced by Hippocratic Medicine including the Hippocratic Oath.

surgery did become a little more advanced in the 16th century. Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519) dissected some human bodies and made accurate drawings of what he saw. the greatest surgeon of the age was Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564). He did many dissections and realized that many of Galen's ideas were wrong. In 1543 he published a book called The Fabric of the Human Body. It contained accurate diagrams of a human body. Vesalius's great contribution was to base anatomy on observation.

physicians followed the practises of indigenous natives and discovered that malaria could be cured with bark from the cinchona tree (effective because, as we now know, it contains quinine); the cause of malaria (a parasite) and its vector (a mosquito), however, were to remain undiscovered until 1880. Barber-surgeons treated wounds and performed amputations without anaesthetic.

Sir Humphry Davy announces the anesthetic properties of nitrous oxide, although dentists do not begin using the gas as an anesthetic for almost 45 years. René Laënnec invents the stethoscope. British obstetrician James Blundell performs the first successful transfusion of human blood. American surgeon Crawford W. Long uses ether as a general anesthetic during surgery but does not publish his results. Credit goes to dentist William Morton.

Austrian-American Karl Landsteiner describes blood compatibility and rejection. Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins suggests the existence of vitamins and concludes they are essential to health. Receives the 1929 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. First successful human blood transfusion using Landsteiner's ABO blood typing technique. Edward Mellanby discovers vitamin D and shows that its absence causes rickets. Insulin first used to treat diabetes.

First draft of human genome is announced; the finalized version is released three years later. A "mini-liver"—the size of a small coin—is generated from human cord blood stem cells by doctors at Newcastle University, U.K. Scientists discover how to use human skin cells to create embryonic stem cells.

The FDA approves the first human clinical trials in the United States for a wearable artificial kidney designed by Blood Purification Technologies Inc. out of Beverly Hills, California.

For the first time the world could read the complete set of human genetic information and begin to discover what our roughly 23,000 genes do. In 2003 a "final" draft was released by researchers, and in 2007 more updates to the genome were published by Craig Venter, PhD, chief scientist behind Celera Genomics. Heart disease deaths drop by 40%. Targeted Therapies for Cancer Expand With New Drugs. Combination Drug Therapy Extends HIV Survival.