Ancient Medicine

Ancient Medicine

1. Prehistoric Times

   • Time Before Written Records
     • Made it harder to remember ideas?
       • Progress would have been very slow
     • No concrete evidence to tell us anything?
       • Can only make educated guesses
         • Get clues from modern aboriginal tribes
   • People were Nomadic Hunter Gatherers
     • Nomadic - Moved around a lot
       • A form of exercise - they were healthy?
     • Sourced all of their own fresh food - a good diet?
   • Religious and Superstitious approach to medicine
     • Evil spirits thought to have caused disease
       • Treatments aimed to get rid of the spirits or ask for their foregiveness
     • Lack of scientific understanding?
   • Some treatments modern scientists believed would have worked
     • Trepanning
       • Leads to altered mental sensations in the brain
         • Relieved pain

2. Egyptian Times

   • Egyptian Society was very agricultural
     • Because of river nile - when it flooded, nutrients from the soil at the bottom fertilised the land
       • Produced lots of crops
         • They had a healthy diet?
         • They used some in medicines - e.g. willow contained salicylic acid
         • Made jobs for people
           • Farmers to grow/harvest crops?
           • Tradespeople sold them?
             • Created revenue for the country
               • They had a strong economy?
   • A religious and superstitious approach to medicine still prevailed
     • The focus was on gods, who were believed to control many aspects of life
       • Sekhmet - sent and cured epidemics
       • Thoth gave doctors the ability to cure people
       • Imhotep - adopted as a god of healing
       • Ideas about medicine were based around gods
         • Treatments involved praying to, or following the rules of these gods
           • e.g. Priests/Doctors kept the books of Thoth
     • Hygiene was very important and had a religious significance
       • People kept themselved very clean
         • Would have made life more comfortable?
         • May have prevented illness?
   • Some ideas that are still in use today were used
     • Doctors made notes of symptoms for diseases to help them diagnose people
       • Would have improved medical knowledge and allowed people to be treated faster?
   • There were some non religious/superstitious ideas suggested
     • e.g. the body was full of channels
       • If a channel was blocked, it would make you unwell
         • Treatments aimed at unblocking the channels, e.g. bleeding, vomiting

3. Greek Times

   • 'Ancient Greeks' are not necessarily people who just lived in the Greece
     • They were people who lived the way the Greeks did
       • Culturally Greek
   • Greek Culture involved lots of debate
     • Many people had many different ideas they wished to share
       • Being involved in more fierce debates could be dangerous
         • e.g. Socrartes was chagred with impiety and was sentenced to death
   • Asclepios was the Greek god of Healing
     • Cult of Asclepios led to a massively religious/superstitious approach to medicine
       • If people were ill they went to Asclepion temples
         • Many different treatments done here
           • There were some logical ones but probably had a religious underpinning
             • Ointments and medicines were prescribed
               • Treated diseases/infections?
             • People had to wash
               • This kept them clean?
             • People spent time exercising
               • Kept them fit and healthy?
           • Many were religious
             • Priests performed rituals
             • People were encouraged to pray
             • Snakes were placed on people
             • Asclepios came to cure people in a dream
   • Hippocrates - the founding father of modern medicine?
     • Hippocratic Oath
       • A promise which doctors have to abide by in their professional lives
         • Doctors still abide by this today, and many medical ethics are based on the promise
         • Ceated a sense of professionalism in the job
     • Hippocratic Corpus
       • A very large collection of medical texts written by Hippocrates
         • Contained information that was used by many at the time
     • Clinical Method of Observation
       • Diagnosis, Prognosis, Observation, Treatment
         • Helped doctors to predict and treat illnesses more efficiently
     • Saw the body as being a balance of elements
       • If they werent in balance - you were ill
       • Massively influenced medicine for the next few centuries
   • Lifestyle Regimens
     • The Greeks had ways of life that they had to abide by for optimum health
       • These changed depending on whether you was ill or not
       • Encompassed diet, exercise, hygiene and sleep patterns
   • Aristotle linked disease to the four humours
     • Yellow and Black Bile, Blood, and Phlegm
       • Needed to be in perfect balance for optimum health
   • Alexandria
     • City in Egypt founded by Alexander the Great
     • Its library attempted to amass all the knowledge of the world
       • Many books made here for other places
     • Became famous for training medics and surgeons
       • Advancements about anatomy made
         • Dissection and Vivisection were allowed - the only place in Ancient Greece that could
   • Surgery was a last resort
     • Knowledge of surgery advanced i.e. how to make certain cuts
       • But anaesthetics an antiseptics were far in the future
         • This made surgery incredibly risky - many died from the trauma of it
     • Most treatments were performed outside the body
       • One expcetion was draining lungs with pneuomnia

4. Roman Times

   • Romans initially disliked Greek ideas
     • As The Greek cities fell to the Romans many Greeks became slaves
       • Romans didnt trust them
     • A plague led to an Asclepion being established in Rome
       • It offered health services to people
         • It survived throughout the entire Roman period offering services to the poor and slaves
   • Romans realised they needed a healthy Army
     • To build an empire you need a strong, healthy and powerful army
       • The state paid for doctors and hospitals for soliders called "valetudinaria"