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3500-500 B.C.E
Used medicines to heal disease -
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Medicine was practiced only in monasteries and convents.
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The study of medical science stopped for over 1,000 years
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The first school of medicine was established in Salerno, Italy
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First strict measures for control of public hygiene instituted.
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The Renaissance stimulated medical practice just as it did all other European intellectual pursuits. Physicians and scholars began to scientifically study medicine
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First recored regulations for midwives
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The first scientific study of human anatomy was published in 1500
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The church did not permit the dissection of 'God fearing bodies' so it was often the bodies of criminals or 'sinners' that weere used. Doctors learned about anatomy from watching these dissections. Sometimes the criminal was alive at the start of proceedings as part of their punishment.
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Andreas Vesalius and Leonardo Da Vinci dissected human bodies and made the first anatomical drawings. These helped in understanding the organs and systems of the human body.
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Anton Von Leeuwenhoek invented the microscope
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First law requiring licensed medical practitioners.
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Benjamin Franklin invented bifocals and found that colds could be passed from person to person
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Edward Jenner came up with the vaccination for smallpox which is related to cowpox.
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Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman to qualify as a doctor in the U.S Inspired Florence Nightingale to pursue nursing
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William Roentgen discovered X-rays in 1895 which allowed doctors to see inside the body to discover what was wrong with the patient
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Ignas Semmelweiss identified the cause of maternal infections and instituted hand washing. Medical students would deliver babies after coming from the cadaver lab without washing their hands, causing the death of many newborn babies and mothers. Ignas also died from a cut during an autopsy.
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Major blood types O, A, B and AB were identified.
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Radium was isolated in 1910 by Marie Curie and also André Debierne
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Penicillin was discovered in 1928 by Sir Alexander Fleming, the first antibiotic that was considered one of the most important discoveries in the 20th century
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Robert Koch was the "Father of Microbiology" He discovered many disease causing organisms- anthrax, tuberculosis, cholera.
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Christian Barnard performed the world's first heart transplant surgery.
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Rabies vaccine proved that microorganisms caused disease and discovered that heating milk prevented the growth of bacteria (pasteurization)(Louis Pasteur)
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AIDS first recognized by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention but the first AIDS-like cases were identified more than a century earlier, in 1872
