Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
2600 bc history of medicine
Medicine in the past and now
Essay on ancient medicine
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: 2600 bc history of medicine
Since the dawn of man, humans have dreaded the suffering caused by injuries and disease. For our benefit, we have enhanced the practices of Medicine and its techniques, but before such ideas existed; the risk of recovery was extremely traumatic and at times fatal. We have abandoned several of the medical procedures used in ancient times since intrepid scientists and physicians sought methods. Although medicine was not always a science, instead it was magic, thus god were trusted for a few techniques more than actual logic. Therefore, the history of medicine has been disturbing and dangerous, but a good number of its practices today used in a more modern way, is quite beneficial to humanity. Much of ancient medicine was shockingly obnoxious …show more content…
For thousands of years the medical specialists believed that sickness was simply the result of a little “bad blood”. Influential physicians like Hippocrates and Galen stated that the human body was filled with four basic elements, or “humors”—yellow bile, black bile, phlegm and blood—and these needed to be kept in balance to maintain proper health. As a result, doctors diagnosed patients that had a fever or other sicknesses with an overabundance of blood. To restore the balance the specialists would cut open a vein and drain some of their crucial fluids into a container until they felt it was no longer necessary. Furthermore, some instances used leeches to suck the blood straight from the skin. This method finally fell out of trend after innovative research showed that it might be doing more harm than good, still, leeching and controlled bloodletting are used today as treatments for assuring rare illnesses. For the benefits of it “The less blood that's available, the harder it is for the bacterium to scrounge up enough heme to thrive”, stated by Miranda Hitti author of Bloodletting's …show more content…
For example, the Native Americans used a therapy involving maggots. Maggots used today clean wounds of the dead flesh, which prevents tissue infections. The therapy is effortless the doctors simply place the maggots into or around the wound and let the worms to their job. “The maggots are an incredible debriding machine,” says assistant professor Kovach, “and you’ll never see a cleaner wound than one that has maggots in it.” For that reason and being a painless method, we still practice it today. Moreover, a surgery used and possibly practice before maggots by the ancient Egyptians is Transsphenoidal surgery. This surgery entails removing tumors from certain areas of the brain by working through the nose. Raj Sindwani, an otolaryngologist with Cleveland Clinic states, “The ancient Egyptians found that the access point to the brain was the nose, they used to remove the brain through the nose before mummification. We now take advantage of this technique by removing brain tumors in that area.” Obviously, they did not do this surgery for the same reason we do today, perhaps because they would not have been able to sustain a patient’s life while doing so. One more surgery experienced by millions of mothers known as C-sections or Cesarean sections originated in 350 B.C. The origin of "cesarean" is
Twenty four centuries ago, Hippocrates created the profession of medicine, for the first time in human history separating and refining the art of healing from primitive superstitions and religious rituals. His famous Oath forged medicine into what the Greeks called a technik, a craft requiring the entire person of the craftsman, an art that, according to Socrates in his dialogue Gorgias, involved virtue in the soul and spirit as well as the hands and brain. Yet Hippocrates made medicine more than a craft; he infused it with an intrinsic moral quality, creating a “union of medical skill and the integrity of the person [physician]” (Cameron, 2001).
For countless years there has always been an urgent need for doctors. Different methods would be used to cure people from their sicknesses. However, life is given by God and it is he who can take it away. Doctors play the role of saving lives, but in the end, they are powerless because nature has to take its course leaving humanity at its limits. In Vincent Lams novel “Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures”, Lam challenges the myth that doctors are omnipotent by contending that “medicine is a science of uncertainty and an art of probability”. Using Fitzgerald as a focal point, Lam debunks the myth that doctors are omnipotent through situations of medical failure, having a loss of power and control and by inhabiting deadly diseases. By showings his mistakes, Lam proves that Fitz is not perfect and God like.
As previously stated, the doctors of that era believed a person would get sick if one of the humor were out of balance. To restore balance doctors would bleed the patients. Bleeding was not done with leeches but with a bowl and pricking needle ...
Fradin is right. Since several analyses of archaic human bones have proven that people have suffered from disease and pain since the beginning of their existence, one can only assume the tremendous pain humans had to endure before the discovery of anesthesia. The four brilliant men who ended mankind’s suffering also had to endure immense anguish after the discovery; their involvement erupted into a maelstrom of controversy, which contributed to early deaths and insanity, even though the discovery of surgical anesthesia has had such a positive effect on humanity.1
In Fever 1793 ,by Laurie Halse Anderson, doctors disagree on how to treat Yellow Fever.The only treatment that most doctors agree on is bloodletting. The only doctor that disagrees with that is french physician/Dr. Deveze. He believes in eating, clean sheets, sleep, and wiping down the patients with warm water. Dr. Benjamin Rush started the whole bloodletting craze ,so when he himself got infected with Yellow Fever he used his method of bloodletting ,and to everyone’s surprise he actually
In the 18th century, the medical field was made up of mostly men. There were three jobs in this field: Physicians, Surgeons, and Apothecaries. Physicians were the most elite of the three. Physicians in the 18th century had no knowledge of anything. Nobody knew that disease was spread by bacteria, germs, and viruses. Because they didn’t know this, nobody practiced sterilization or hygiene, hospital and personal.
Although these “night doctors” were a superstation, they really existed. They dissected and experimented on a countless number of both dead and alive African-Americans, but not all of the experiments had a horrible outcome. Dr. James Marion Sims’s use of slave women a cure for vesico-vaginal fistula (Savitt 344). By chance, he was treating three black servants with the same condition. He also so happened to be treating a white woman that had a malpositioned uterus and suddenly realized that by placing the women on their elbows and knees, he would be able to visualized the fistula and perhaps repair it (345). Once he made this realization, he then asked his subjects if he could experiment on them. They knew exactly what he was going to be doing to them. He didn’t have to force them to try this new procedure because they were desperate for relief. He then sent them home cured. Another example of successful outcomes is the performance of ovariotomies performed by Dr. Ephraim McDowell (346). After the first successful surgery, he perfected his technique on four black women. “The final example of the usefulness of black to physicians in the slave society was the performance of Caesarian operations on pregnant women” (347). The procedure was performed occasionally with few success; but over the years, doctors have perfected the procedure. Today, there are few cases
In fact, Native American medicine men belief is firmly grounded in age-old traditions, legends and teachings. Healing and medical powers have existed since the very beginning of time according to Native American stories. Consequently they have handed down the tribe's antediluvian legends, which i...
Although blood transfusions had been used before the First World War, many were not successful due to lack of knowledge in this type of treatments. World War I pushed the development of blood transfusions, allowing them to be safer. Before the war in the 17th century, blood transfusions often occurred with the use of animal blood, a practice that did not achieve desired results. These transfusions often times came from sheep, and although they were sometimes successful, it was discovered that any large amounts of transfusions would cause death. Coming to the conclusion that animal blood transfusions did not save lives, scientists looked to humans for human to human transfusions. Many of these attempted transfusions were met with failure but in 1818, Dr. James Blundell accomplished the first successful human blood transfusion; four ounces of blood were transferred to the patient from her husband. From that moment on, doctors began to learn even more about blood transfusions and how to do them properly. By 1901, the four human blood groups were discovered by Karl Landsteiner; with less differences in the bloods transfused together, coagulation and clumping amounts decreased. This benefited many lives in that toxic reactions to the wrong types of blood did not occu...
When the main characters brother becomes sick the doctor believes that he has a “Disturbance of blood. Therefore he needed to be bled. The physician places slimy leeches all over my brother’s body and let them such his blood”(Oppel 49). This was a very common medical practice in the 17th and 18th century, so much that “there was a shortage of leeches in certain European countries due to its rigorous use.” (Leeching in the History--a Review). Throughout the book the parents of the sick child find doctor after doctor to help their child become better, but none of them know what is happening. They finally find a doctor under the name Dr. Murnau. Even though his name is made up, what he discovered and how he identifies the sickness is accurate. In 1665 Robert Hooke discovered the existence of cells using a microscope, which is exactly how Dr. Murnau discovered his
Although surgical operations were performed, they did not know about sanitisation and there were no anaesthetics. Most patients died from infection or shock.
In modern medicine when an ailment arises it can be quickly diagnosed, attributed to a precise bacteria, virus, or body system, and treated with medication, surgery or therapy. During the time before rational medical thought, this streamlined system of treatment was unheard of, and all complaints were attributed to the will of the multitude of commonly worshiped Greek gods (Greek Medicine 1). It was during the period of Greek rationalism that a perceptible change in thought was manifested in the attitudes towards treating disease. Ancient Greece is often associated with its many brilliant philosophers, and these great thinkers were some of the first innovators to make major developments in astrology, physics, math and even medicine. Among these academics was Hippocrates, one of the first e...
Doctors believed the human body was part of the universe, so they used elements for each humour, “Yellow bile was the equivalent of fire. Phlegm was the equivalent of water. Black bile was the equivalent of earth and blood was the equivalent of air”(“Shakespearean and Elizabethan Medicine”). Also, because of their beliefs and lack of knowledge on serious medical conditions, most severe cases were not treated accurately. Some doctors believed if a person broke a bone, then it was never supposed to be used again because the accident was based from many sins of the soul (“Shakespearean and Elizabethan Medicine”).
World War One, in its own time, was the most destructive war Earth itself had ever seen, and this was due to the new technology. “There are two groups of people in warfare – those organized to inflict and those organized to repair wounds – and there is little doubt but that in all wars, and in this one in particular, the former have been better prepared for their jobs.” There were many advancements, disadvantages, and foundations involving medicine in World War I. The assassination of Franz Ferdinand on June 28, 1914 started the war, and things spiraled out of control from there. With there being so many existing alliances with countries all over, almost all of Europe became involved. Eventually two sides emerged which were the Central Powers and the Allies. America had tried to stay out of the war, but when Russia backed out in 1917 America slipped in.
Rubbing fingers and palms across a person’s head in order to analyze that person’s mental aptitude is the basis of phrenology. This was a common practice during the 19th century. It became especially popular in the latter half of the 19th century, around the same time great advances were being made with the telephone. Although these two topics were developing in the same era, they differ greatly in relevancy to today’s world, nearly 200 years later. The telephone is a means of long-distance communication is part of society to date. Phrenology, on the other hand, is the science of the character divination and faculty psychology, once widely accepted in the 19th century, it is viewed as a completely impractical practice today.