The Twentieth Century: Medical Advances

A gradual evolution in medical advances has occurred throughout history. Illness and disease were of a mystical nature or considered divine penance in our early history as in the times of the early Babylonians. The Ebers Papyrus, which were dated approximately 1500 B.C.E. although focused on empirical medicine also provided for magical elements. The managed health care of today is not a modern development but actually one that had its early beginning within the Code of Hammaurabi thousands of years ago. Hippocrates taught the separation of religion and medicine and introduced the foundations for the advancement into our modern day bioethics with his teachings of “First, do no harm” (Anderson, 2007, p. 59). Along with Hippocrates, Aristotle provided further improvements with scientific experimentation and observation, including a true appreciation for anatomy. Ancient Greece gave us the foundation for present day sports medicine when they acknowledged the need for athletes to be properly prepared for competition, as well as treatment of their subsequent sports related injuries. The period of Enlightment in the eighteenth century impacted what is today our public health medicine which focuses on providing for healthy work environments, caring for the less fortunate, sanitation, and maternal care to name a few. It would certainly be remiss if the importance of the considerable advanced medical knowledge that the nineteen century provided with the germ theory of disease and the Bacteriological Revolution, which began with Pasteur and Koch were not included. The importance of these we see represented in many medical fields today including bacteriology, virology, immunology, microbiology, as well as in antisepsis. We need to acknowle...

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