History

Prehistoric Medicine

• * Couldn't read or write- only proof is from cave drawings
• * An example of a group of people who live in a very similar way is the aborigines
• * Disease didn't really spread because people used to move around in tribes
• *They thought that spirits caused disease
• *They used medicine men as a way of getting the disease out of the person
• *Trephoning was also used this was when holes were drilled into someones skull to get the evil spirit out of them
• *They had no knowledge of anatomy and just had supernatural beliefs about what could cause disease

Egyptian medicine

• *They could read and write and were able to make up their own paper called papyrus and also their own alphabet called hieroglyphics.
• * They were able to get trade because they had the river Nile. This meant that they could trade different herbs and spices and different ingredients to make herbal remedies.
• *They kept clean by bathing, this was to prepare them for afterlife. They also changed their clothing regularly which meant disease couldn't be transferred easily.
• *They found ways of preserving bodies to prepare them for afterlife.
• *The Egyptians used mosquito nets- this was more for the comfort rather than actually having knowledge of what mosquitoes could carry which could cause harm.
• *The Egyptians had simple toilets and baths
• * They had a sophisticated water drainage system for crops but they didn't have one for sewers.
• *Egyptians had a reasonable grasp of human anatomy

Greek Medicine

• * The Greeks had started to move away from supernatural ideas
• * They began to believe in the God called Asclepius who was the God of healing. If someone was ill they would stay as Asclepius' temple and they believed that overnight Asclepius would come and make them feel better.
• * Hippocrates was important to the Greek's because he invented 'the theory of the four humors'. This theory stated that the reason why you get ill is because of the imbalance of the humors. The humors depended on the weather and the season.
• *Hippocrates also made up the Hippocratic oath and clinical observation which is a long term impact on medicine because it is still used today.
• * Hippocrates wrote many books about his findings
• * Hippocrates didn't do much dissection however he did do some. It was ethically okay to conduct dissection on people who had been dead once their soul had left them.

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