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In the Early Beginnings they were led to believe that’s sickness and diseases were caused by supernatural spirits and demons. -
In the Early Beginning they believed they had to have ceremonies performed by tribal doctors to exorcise the demons. One ceremony that was performed was a form of trephining, where the tribal doctors would remove parts of the cranium with tools to exorcise demons. Another method they used was herbs and plants. -
There are some medicines used today that were used in the Early Beginnings, some examples are digitalis, quinine belladonna and atropin morphine. Digitalis are used to slow down the heartbeat by pill or injection. Quinine is used to control muscle spasm and fever. In addition it prevents malaria. -
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The Egyptians were the first people to keep accurate health data. The Egyptians had figured out how to identify certain diseases. In their culture the priests were the doctors and took care of the sick. They used medicines to heal the sick. They had also discovered how to splint fractures, and they used leeches to treat disorders by letting them bloodletting. -
The ancient Chinese were the first people to use primitive acupuncture therapies. The Chinese had learned to treat many diseases with tool stones. Thus led into the practice used today knows as acupuncture. -
The Greeks thought of medicine as a type of art. They studied the causes of illnesses and figured out that illness may have natural, instead of spiritual causes. Religious custom permitted bodies from bring dissected during the ancient times. Hippocrates wrote the Oath of Hippocrates. -
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The main treatment they used for curing illness was by a prayer. The medicine was made up of herbal mixtures. -
The Romans had invented a sanitation system. The system brought clean water to their villages by waterways. This kept their water more sanitary and led to less diseases. The Romans were the first to organize their medical care. They sent equipment and doctors to care for the soldiers in the army. The Roman doctors would keep the ill in rooms in their houses. This began the idea of hospitals. -
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In when the Huns took over the Roman Empire, they had stopped studying medical science. For roughly 1,000 years, medicine was only done in convents and monasteries. This was because the Church believed that life and death was under control by God. The monks and priests didn’t care about how the body functioned. -
During the Middle Ages, horrible epidemics occurred resulting in millions of deaths. The Bubonic plague caused 60 million deaths alone. Other diseases such as the small pox, diphtheria, syphilis, and tuberculosis were life threatening during these times. -
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The Renaissance viewed the rebirth as learning. During the Renaissance, new scientific knowledge began. Some of the things that were developed during this period was, the building of medical schools and research, new ideas involving disease rather than thinking disease was the will of God, accepting dissection to study the body, and developing the printing press for publishing books. -
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Leonardo da Vinci studied and recorded data of the anatomy of the human body. -
Gabriele Fallopius was the first to discover the fallopian tubes of the female body. -
Bartolommeo Eustachio discovered the Eustachian tube which leads from our ears to our throat. -
William Harvey used the Leonardo’s deception of the human body to understand physiology. William Harvey was able to narrate the circulation of blood and the pumping of the heart. -
Antonie van Leeuwenhoek created the microscope, realizing that their is life that the human eye can’t see. Antonie van Leeuwenhoek discovered bacteria from scraping his teeth causing tooth decay, -
Apothecaries were the beginning of pharmacies. In medieval England, apothecaries were used for flourishing trade of drugs and spices from the East. -
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Benjamin Franklin discovered bifocals. He also found out that colds could be transmitted from person to person. -
Multiple discoveries were made during the eighteenth century. Medical students attended classes in classrooms, laboratory, and patients at bedside. When someone had passed away the students would dissect the body and observed it. This helped them better understand why illness and death occurred. -
Joseph Priestley discovered the elements of oxygen. Joseph Priestley also observed that plants refresh air that has lost its oxygen. He determined that it is used for respiration. -
Edward Jenner discovered methods of vaccinations for the smallpox. Smallpox had killed a ton of people. Edwards discovery prevented millions of deaths from the disease. This also led to immunization and preventive medicine in public health. -
René Laënnec invented the stethoscope. The stethoscope was made entirely out of wood. It allowed them to hear the heart and lungs. The stethoscope allowed doctors to determine if diseases were present. -
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Ignaz Semmelweis identified why childbed fever occurred. Many women had died from childbed fever after giving birth. Ignaz Semmelweis had figured out that patients of midwives that had given birth had fewer deaths percentages. This was because care given by physicians were not as sanitary. Physicians would not wash their hands after dissecting dead bodies before delivering babies. Due to his discovery hand washing and cleanliness became an essential practice. -
Florence Nightingale was the founder of modern nursing. Before this time, women were unsuitable ti be a nurse. She took 38 women to care for soldiers who were dying from cholera in the war. She soon became a hero while she was there. After the war, she decided to devote her life to sanitation and construction management of hospitals. She designed clean environments for patients. These environments consisted of limited numbers of beds, air circulation, windows, and that the rooms were clean. -
Louis Pasteur also knows as the “Father of Microbiology”, came upon that tiny microorganisms were everywhere. Throughout his experiments, he determined that microorganisms caused diseases. Before he determined that, doctors and scientists had thought that microorganisms were created by diseases. In addition, he had discovered that pasteurization killed bacteria in milk. We still use this method to this day. Louis also created a vaccine for rabies in 1885. -
Dmitri Ivanovski figured out that some diseases were caused by microorganisms that couldn’t be examined through a microscope. These microorganisms are referred to as viruses. The viruses were not examined until the electron microscope was created in Germany. Some examples of diseases caused by viruses are: rabies, mumps, influenza, measles, poliomyelitis, German measles, herpes zoster, and the chicken pox. -
Joseph Lister had studied Pasteurs discovery that microorganisms caused infection. He used carbolic acid on cuts to kill germs that caused infections. Lister became the first doctor to use antiseptic during surgery. Antiseptics help prevent infections in incisions. -
Ernst von Bergmann developed asepsis. He used his knowledge from Lister’s and Pasteur’s discoveries that germs caused infections in wounds. Ernst developed a method to keep areas germ-free before and after procedures. -
Robert Koch discovered many disease- causing organisms. Robert made the culture plate method to help name pathogens and isolated bacterium that resulted in tuberculosis. Robert also found the importance of cleanliness to help stop the spread of disease. -
Paul Ehrlich determined the effect on medicine on disease causing microorganisms. The treatment he had discovered worked against some microorganisms but didn’t kill other bacteria. Ehrlich discoveries brought the idea of use of chemicals to kill diseases. While he was trying to find a chemical to cure syphilis, he tried 606 different experiments. He finally found a treatment that was effective. -
Wilhelm Roentgen discovered x-rays. He was the first to take x-ray pictures of his wife’s hand. This discovery let doctors see inside the body and helped them figure out what was wrong. -
Before anesthesia was invented, surgeries were performed without any. They used herbs, hashish, and alcohol to help decrease pain. Sometimes they chicken patients to make them unconscious. Many deaths occurred due to pain from surgeries and procedures. During the nineteenth and twentieth century, nitrous oxide was invented. This allowed patients to be put into a deep unconscious so they wouldn’t experience any pain. -
Sir Alexander Fleming discovered that penicillin killed deadly bacteria. This discovery is known as one of the most important discoveries of the twentieth century. Before penicillin was found, people died from illness that are now treatable today. -
Sigmund Freud was the first to discover conscience and unconscious parts of the mind. He gathered information about the effects of the unconscious mind on the body. He had realized that the mind and body worked together. This led to the understanding of psychomatic illness. -
Gerhard Domagk discovered sulfonamide compounds. These were the first medications that killed bacteria. These compounds helped change the practice of killing life threatening diseases. -
Jonas Salk came across that dead polio virus would cause immunity to poliomyelitis. This viruses thousands many people each year. Active people were known to develop this virus. The discovery of the vaccine allowed many people to survive the virus. -
Albert Sabin used living polio in the vaccine. This was more effective than dead polio. This vaccine is still used to this day to immunize newborns against this disease. -
Francis Crick and James Watson were the first to discover the molecular structure of DNA, based on its double helix. The model they had created explained how DNA replicates and how hereditary information was passed on. This was the beginning of advanced information on molecular biology. In addition, Francis Crick and James Watson won the Nobel Prize in Medicine from this discovery. -
Christian Barnard accomplished the first successful heart transplant. -
Ben Carson seperated Siamese twins and preformed hemispherectomies, which are procedures to help prevent seizures. -
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Five advances that I believe are very important in the twenty first century are, Covid-19 testing, cancer therapy such as chemotherapy, and radiation, pain killers, and antibiotics, imagining such as MRI and CT scans. Without these advances we wouldn’t be where we are today with medicine.