History of Medicine - Molly Sawyer

By Molly Sawyer
  • Primitive Times
    4000 BCE

    Primitive Times

    • They did not know much about medicine at all.
    • They thought illnesses and diseases were caused by evil spirits and demons.
    • They didn't have any medicines either so they used herbs and plants.
    • They used Trepanation or trephining which is surgically removing a pice of the bone from the skull. They thought it would release the demons. They would then take the piece of the skull and wear it around there neck for good luck.
    • The average life span was 20 years.
  • Ancient Egyptians
    3000 BCE

    Ancient Egyptians

    • During this time, Physicians were priests.
    • This was the first time in history that they started to record health records. This was very beneficial for many people later.
    • They did something called Bloodletting or leeches, where they thought that people had to much blood in their body because they didn't know that blood circulated thorughtout the body, so they would cut people to relase blood in their body. They thought this would cure them.
    • The average life span was 20-30 years.
  • Ancient Chinese
    1700 BCE

    Ancient Chinese

    • The ancient chinese believed that they would cure the whole body if they cured the spirit and the soul.
    • They started to search for medical reasons for illness
    • They also used a method called acupuncture which is where they would stick tiny little needles in your body and it was suppose to relieve pain.
    • The average life span during this time was 20-30 years.
  • Ancient Greeks
    1200 BCE

    Ancient Greeks

    • Hippocrates is considered the Father of Medicine
    • They were the first people to observe the effects of diseases to see how they can fix it. This lead to modern medical sciences.
    • They thought that illness was a result of natural causes.
    • They stressed diet, hygiene and excercise as ways to prevent disease.
    • What also helped them develop medicine was the olympics originated there and so they had many athletes getting hurt and that gave them a chance to observe the human body more.
  • Ancient Romans
    753 BCE

    Ancient Romans

    • They were the first to provide medical care for soilders so they could continue to fight in the war.
    • The hospitals became religous and charitable institutions.
    • They created sewers and aqueducts to improve sanitiation and public health.
    • They also believed that they body was regulated by four humor's: blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm. They thought that if one of them had too much of one humor or not enough of the other than it would cause an imbalance in the body and get sick.
  • Dark Ages
    400

    Dark Ages

    • During this time the Catholic Church ruled everything and they believed that it was improtant to save the soul and they prohibited the study of medicine.
    • They did not make a lot of progress during this time because the study of medicine was prohibited. -They also didn't make a lot of progress because they could not do an autopsy to figure out why they died because the church prohibited it.
  • Middle Ages
    800

    Middle Ages

    • During this time, people started to require people to pass a medical exam before they got their licenses.
    • They also established medical universities.
    • This is also when the bubonic plague killed off 75% of the population.
    • The bubonic plague was transmitted from rodents to human by the bite of infected fleas.
  • Renaissance
    1350

    Renaissance

    • This time was considered the Rebirth of Medicine.
    • People started disecting more bodies which lead to more understanding of the body.
    • The First anatomy book was published by Andreas Vesalius.
  • 16th and 17th Centuries

    16th and 17th Centuries

    • Ambroise Pare discovered ligatures to stop bleeding.
    • They invented the Microscope.
      • This was extremely helpful for physicians to be able to see disease causing organisms.
  • 18th Century

    18th Century

    • Gabriel Fahrenheit created the first mecury thermometer.
    • This thermometer helped them to see people's internal temperatures and they figured out what was a normal temperature and what was not a normal temperature. They then figured out that when you are sick you do not have a normal temperature.
    • They discovered the smallpox vaccine.
    • All of these things helped increase the lifespan to 40-50 years.
  • 19th Century

    19th Century

    • During this time, there were many things that helped advance medicine rapidally such as:
      • The first X- Ray Machine Developed
      • There was the first open heart surgery
      • Invention of the stethoscope
      • Formal Training for nurses began
  • 20th Century

    20th Century

    • 1901: They discovered there very different types of blood.
    • 1922: Insulin was discovered and used to treat diabetes.
    • 1943: They developed the kidney dialysis machine to help with those that have kidney diseases
    • 1953: The structure of DNA discovered and research in gene therapy begins.
  • 20th Century Vaccines

    20th Century Vaccines

    During this time there were many vaccines that were created. Such as:
    - Oral Polio
    - Influenza
    - Measles
    - Hepatitis A & B
    - Chicken Pox
    - Tuberculosis
    There were many more. Since so many people got vaccinated for these diseases, some of them have gone extinct.
  • 20th Century

    20th Century

    Through 1960s to 1980s they started doing the first organ transplants.
    - 1960: Kidney
    - 1963: Liver
    - 1967: Heart
    - 1982: Artificial Heart
  • 21st Century

    21st Century

    There have been some crazy medical discoveries in the 21st century. Such as a face transplant and the first artificial heart was inplanted into a patient in Kentucky. They also completed the Human Genome Project.