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4000 BCE
Primitive Time 4000 BC - 3000 BC
- Illness and diseases were a punishment from the Gods
- Tribal witch doctors treated illness with ceremonies
- Herbs and plants used as medicines
- Surgically removing a piece of bone from the skull
- Life span was about 20 years of age
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3000 BCE
Ancient Egyptian 3000 BC - 300 BC
- Physicians were priests
- Bloodletting or leeches used as medical treatment
- Egyptians kept accurate health records
- Developed the art of splinting fractures
- Life span was about 20-30 years
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1700 BCE
Ancient Chinese 1700 BC - AD 220
- Believed in the need to treat the whole body by curing the spirit and nourishing the body
- Recorded a pharmacopoeia of medications based mainly on the use of herbs
- Used therapies such as acupuncture
- Began to search for medical reasons for illness
- Life span was about 20-30 years
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1200 BCE
Ancient Greeks 1200 BC - 200 BC
- First to observe the human body and the effects of disease – led to modern medical sciences
- Believed illness is a result of natural causes
- Stressed diet and exercise as ways to prevent disease
- Life span usually about 25-35 years
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753 BCE
Ancient Romans 753 BC - AD 410
- First to organize medical care by providing care for injured soldiers
- Later hospitals were religious and charitable institutions in monasteries and convents
- First public health and sanitation systems by building sewers and aqueducts
- Doctors kept the sick in their home. They wore a death mask
- Life span usually 25-35 years
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400
Dark Ages AD 400 - AD 800
- Emphasis on saving the soul and study of medicine was prohibited
- Prayer and divine intervention were used to treat illness & disease
- Monks and priests provided custodial care for ill people
- Medications were mainly herbal mixtures
- Life span usually 20-30 years
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800
Middle Ages
- Bubonic Plague killed 75% of population in Europe and Asia.
- The Black Death killed 60 million people
- Major diseases included smallpox, diptheria, tuberculosis, typhoid, the plaque, and malaria
- Arabs began requiring physicians pass examinations and obtain licenses
- Life span usually 20-35 years
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1350
Renaissance AD 1350 - AD 1650
- Dissection of body led to increased understanding of anatomy and physiology
- Invention of printing press allowed medical knowledge to be shared
- First anatomy book was published by Andreas Vesalius
- Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci used dissection to draw more realistic pictures of the human body
- Life span usually 30-40 years
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16th and 17th Centuries
- Cause of disease still not known – many people died from infections
- Invention of the microscope allowed physicians to see disease-causing organisms.
- Apothecaries made, prescribed, and sold medications
- Ambroise Pare known as the Father of Modern Surgery established use of ligatures to stop bleeding
- Life spans usually 35-45 years
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18th, 19th, 20th & 21st Centuries
- Joseph Priestly discovered the element oxygen
- Formal training for nurses began
- Insulin discovered and used to treat diabetes
- Organ Transplants
- The first totally implantable artificial heart was placed in a patient in Louisville, Ky. In 2001
