'The Romans' withdrawal from Britain was a turning point in the development of medicine and public health.' How far do you agree with this statement? (16 marks)

'The Romans' withdrawal from Britain was a turning point in the development of medicine and public health.' How far do you agree with this statement? (16 marks)

1. For the better

   • Had to develop our own ideas without the help + investment of the Romans
     • Pushed us to take medicine and public health more seriously
       • This was one of the Romans' legacies to us
   • Let us develop our own ideas without being oppressed by famous Roman + Greek doctors
     • We then learnt from our own mistakes and took more of an interest in the subject
   • British doctors could now learn from doctors from all over the world, they weren't just restricted to Rome + the Roman Empire

2. For the worse

   • We no longer had the Roman investment into our country and this meant that we had to fund ourselves
     • Therefore there was less investment in medicine + public health and more into 'more important' things such as the military
   • No longer had the Roman passion for public health + medicine driving us to care about it
   • A lot of the Roman army doctors were forced to leave along with the army leaving us with a shortage of doctors

3. The Romans greatly improved our public health + medicine- who knows how much/ long they could have continued with this?

4. The Romans may have brought us up to date with public health + medicine, but now they were simply oppressing us and stopping us from making improvements ourselves, believing that we were incapable of such a thing.