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Diseases were thought to be caused by Demons and other evil spirits. -
In an attempt to treat sickness, tribal doctors performed ceremonies to exorcise evil spirits. One such ceremony involved an early form of trephining, whereby the tribal doctors would remove part of the cranium using a primitive tool to attempt to exorcise demons. -
Primitive Humans also used herbs and plants as medicine. Some of the same medicines are still used today. Some examples are: Digitalis- Digitalis comes from the foxglove plant and used to be chewed to slow down heart beat, now it is used by pill or injection to treat heart conditions. Quinine comes from the bark of the cinchona tree. It controls fever, relieves muscle spasms, and helps prevent malaria. Belladonna and atropine are made from the poisonous nightshade plant. This relieves spasms. -
Finally, Morphine is made from the opium poppy. It is an effective medication for treating severe pain. It is addicting and used only when nothing else will help.
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The Egyptians were the earliest people to keep accurate health records. They would ask the gods to heal them. In the Egyptian culture, the priests acted as physicians. They used medicine to heal disease, learned the art of splinting fractures, and treated disorders by blood letting with the use of leeches. They would primarily heal by draining blood, since blood pooled around a wound can threaten the healing tissue. Interestingly today, leeches are used to help restore blood circulation. -
The ancient Chinese, from as early as the Stone Age , were the first to use acupuncture therapies. These early medical pioneers learned to treat a variety of illnesses and diseases with stone tools. Their methods eventually advanced to the Chinese acupuncture therapy we know today. -
To the ancient Greeks, medicine was considered an art and not just a practice. The Greeks were the first to study the case of disease and to determine that sickness may have natural, not spiritual cause. During ancient times, religious custom did not allow bodies to be dissected. The father of medicine, Hippocrates kept careful notes of signs and symptoms of diseases. With his study he found that disease was not supernatural. Hippocrates wrote the standard ethics called the oath of Hippocrates. -
The Romans were the first to organize medical care, they sent medics with their army to care for soldiers. Roman physicians kept a room in their houses open for the ill. Public buildings for the care of the sick were established. Physicians were paid by the Roman government. Roman physicians wore death masks that were spice filled masks in the beak which the Roman’s believed protected the from infection and bad odors. -
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When the Roman Empire was conquered by the Huns, the study of medicine stopped. For a period of 1,000 years, medicine was practiced only in convents and monasteries. Because the churches faith believed that their lives were in god hands they had no interest in studying medicine. -
The monks and priests primary treatment was prayer, although sometimes medicine consisted of herbal mixtures, and care was custodial. -
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Epidemics wiped out many of the population over these years. The Bubonic plague alone killed 60 million people. Other out of control diseases included, smallpox, diphtheria, syphilis, and tuberculosis. -
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The Renaissance period saw the rebirth of learning. During this period, new scientific progress began. Some developments in this period include, the building of universities and medical schools, the search for answers about disease rather than having uncertain answers in gods, the acceptance of dissection of the body for study, and the development of the printing press and the publishing of books, allowing greater access to knowledge from research. -
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Leonardo da Vinci studied and recorded the anatomy of the body. He made a depiction of it. -
Gabriele Fallopius studied the female anatomy and discovered their fallopian tubes. He named them after his last name. -
Bartolommeo Eustachio discovered the Eustachian tube and named it after himself. The Eustachian tube is the tube leading from the ear to the throat. -
William Harvey used Leonardo da Vinci knowledge to understand physiology, he was then able to learn and describe the process of the heart pumping blood and how that blood circulates. -
Antonie von Leeuwenhoek invented the microscope, bringing it to the realization that there is life smaller than the eye can see. Leeuwenhoek also scraped his teeth and analyzed the bacteria that causes tooth decay. Although he didn’t know that’s what it does, it brought to the eyes that it was there. -
Apothecaries are early pharmacies started at this time. In medieval England, these Apothecaries participated in trade of drugs and spices from the east. -
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Benjamin Franklins discoveries benefit us lots nowadays. His discoveries include bifocals, and discovering that colds can be passed from one person to another. -
Many discoveries were made in the eighteenth century that required a new way of teaching medicine. Students attended lectures in classroom and laboratories and also observed patients at the bedside. When a patient passed, med students would dissect their body and observe the disease process. This bettered the understanding of disease and death. Also in the eighteenth century more students were studying medicine. In 1849, Elizabeth Blackwell became the first female physician in the United States. -
Joseph Priestley discovered the element oxygen. He also studied plants and figured out that the plants refresh air that has lost its oxygen, making it usable for cellular respiration. -
Edward Jenner discovered a method of vaccination for smallpox. Smallpox is a disease that took many peoples lives in epidemics during the eighteenth century. Edward’s discovery led to immunization and to preventive medicine in healthcare. His discovery saved millions of lives. -
René Laënnec invented the stethoscope. The first stethoscope was wooden. It increased the ability to hear the heart and lungs, allowing doctors to determine if disease was present. -
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Ignaz Semmelweis identified the cause of childbed fever. Large numbers of women died from this fever after giving birth. Ignaz noticed that midwives patients had less cases of death as opposed to physicians. Ignaz realized that physicians delivered babies on the same tables the dissected dead bodies on. These physicians did not wash their hands or change their aprons before deliveries. Their hands were dirty and they infected the woman. Besides being doubted, Ignaz’s studies were proven correct. -
Florence Nightingale had a nursing school called “Nightingale school of nursing”. The graduates from the school raised the standards of nursing and were very respected. Florence gained experience from volunteering in hospitals. During the Crimean war she took 38 women to care for soldiers. After the war she devoted her life to making reports on the need of better sanitation and management for hospitals. She also designed a hospital ward that improved the environment and care of the patients. -
Louis Pasteur discovered that microorganisms were everywhere. Through his experiments and studies he proved that microorganisms cause disease. Before his discovery , physicians thought that disease created microorganisms. He also discovered pasteurization in milk to kill and prevent bacteria from growing. He also created a vaccination for rabies in 1885. -
Dmitri Ivanovski discovered that some diseases are caused by a microorganism that you can’t see under a microscope. These diseases are called Viruses. These viruses were not studied until the electron microscope was invented in Germany.
Here is a list of diseases caused by viruses:
*Poliomyelitis
*Rabies
*Measles
*Influenza
*Chicken pox
*German measles
*Herpes zoster
*Mumps -
Joseph Lister used Pasteur’s discovery that microorganisms can cause infections. He conducted a test and used carbolic acid on wounds to kill germs that cause infections. He became the first doctor to use antiseptics during surgery. This helped prevent an infection from happening at the incision point. -
Ernst von Bergmann used Lister’s and Pasteur’s research about germs causing infections in wounds to develop a method to keep an area germ-free before and during surgery. This was the start of asepsis. -
Robert Koch discovered many disease causing organisms. He developed the culture plate method to identify pathogens and also isolated the bacterium that causes tuberculosis. He also helped enforce some cleanliness and sanitation habits to help prevent the spread of disease. -
Paul Ehrlich discovered the effect of medicine on disease causing microorganisms. His treatment worked against some microorganisms but was not effective in killing other bacteria. His discoveries brought about the use of chemicals to fight disease. In his search to find a chemical solution for syphilis, he conducted 606 experiments. On the 606th try, he found a treatment that worked. -
Wilhelm Roentgen discovered X-rays in 1895. He took the very first picture using an X-ray on his wife’s hand. His discovery is very important today and helped doctors to see inside of the body and discover what was wrong with their patient. -
Before the 19th century, surgery was performed on patients without anesthesia. In substitute for anesthesia, many early physicians would use herbs, hashish, and alcohol to prevent pain. During the nineteenth and twentieth century, nitrous oxide, ether, and chloroform were discovered. These drugs have the ability to put people into a deep sleep so they don’t feel pain during procedures. The knowing of asepsis and the ability to prevent pain are the fundamentals to a safe, painless surgery today. -
Sir Alexander Fleming found that penicillin killed life threatening bacteria. Before penicillin was discovered, people died of illnesses that we consider curable today, including pneumonia, gonorrhea, and blood poisoning. The discovery of penicillin is considered one of the most important discoveries of the twentieth century. -
Sigmund Freud discovered the conscious and unconscious parts of the mind. He studied the effects of the unconscious mind on the body. He determined that the mind and body work together. This led to an understanding of psychosomatic illness which is a physical illness caused by emotional conflict. His studies were the foundation of psychology and psychiatry. -
Gerhard Domagk discovered sulfonamide compounds. These compounds were the first medications effective in killing bacteria. They changed the practice of medicine by killing deadly diseases. -
Jonas Salk found that a dead polio virus would cause immunity to poliomyelitis. This virus paralyzed thousands of people every year. It seemed to attack the most active and athletic people. It was a feared disease, and the discovery of the vaccine saved many people from death or crippling. -
In contrast to Jonas Salk’s vaccine, Albert Sabin used a live polio virus vaccine, which is more effective. This vaccine is used today to immunize babies against this dreaded disease. -
Francis Crick and James Watson discovered the molecular structure of DNA, based on its known double helix. Their model served to explain how DNA replicates and how hereditary information is coded on it. This set the stage for the rapid advances in molecular biology that continue to this day. In 1962, they won the Nobel prize in medicine for this discovery. -
Christian Barnard was the first person to ever successfully perform the first heart transplant. -
Ben Carson continues to be a pioneer in separating Siamese twins and performing hemispherectomies, a surgery on the brain to stop the body from seizing. -
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The first partial face transplant was done in Amiens, France, in 2005. Five years later, doctors in Spain completed the world's first full-face transplant on a man who severely damaged his face in an accident -- giving him a new nose, lips, teeth and cheekbones during 24 hours of surgery. The first full-face transplant done in the United States was performed on Connie Culp, seen here, in 2008. -
Treating HIV used to require a complex regimen of medications. People suffering from HIV had to take certain pills at certain times through out the day. Atripla changed that by combining three HIV medications into one daily pill called an “HIV Cocktail” pill. This helped people with HIV manage better and have a more simple schedule. -
Targeted cancer therapies are drugs that usually work in one of two ways: they either interfere with the spread of cancer by blocking cells involved in tumor growth, or they identify -- and kill -- the deadly cancer cells. Usually Cancer treatments effect and attack health cells as well as the tumor which is why many patients find themselves feeling weak and losing hair. -
Our society is discovering new approaches to medical care every year. The word healthy no longer refers to a persons physical health, but also to a persons emotional, social, mental, and spiritual wellness. To help patients achieve this kind of holistic health, the medical community has become more open to alternative methods of care including Ayurvedic practitioners, Chinese medicine practitioners, chiropractors, homeopaths, hypnotists, and naturopaths to help meet their medical needs. -
Doctors are now often practicing telemedicine. Telemedicine includes consultative, diagnostic, and treatment services. Health care providers now use electronic communications to send important medical information to a patient or another healthcare provider. This has improved patient care by supplying health providers and patients with quicker access to information and greater opportunities for communication.