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Period: 4000 BCE to 3000 BCE
Early Beginnings
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3900 BCE
Diseases Caused
Evil spirits -
3600 BCE
Treatments
Prayer, blood letting, exorcisms -
3100 BCE
Medicine Used Today
Digitalis for heart, Quinine, Belladonna, and Atropine for digestion, and Morphine for pain -
Period: 2999 BCE to 399
Ancient Times
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2900 BCE
Ancient Egyptians
Ancient Egyptians were first to keep accurate heath records. They called upon gods to heal them and learned how to identify diseases. Their physicians were priests and they used medicines to heal diseases, learned to splint fractures, and treated disorders by bloodletting with leeches. -
1900 BCE
Ancient Chinese
Early medical pioneers treated illness and disease with with stone tools which developed into Chinese Acupuncture. -
900 BCE
Ancient Greeks
The Ancient Greeks were the first to study causes of diseases and came to the conclusion that illnesses may have natural rather than spiritual causes. In this time, according to religious custom, bodies were not allowed to be dissected. So Hippocrates based his studies off of the external body and wrote the standard of ethics called the Oath of Hippocrates. -
100
Ancient Romans
The Ancient Romans the first to start hospitals, starting based out of their homes and then developing into public buildings to care for the sick. They also were the first to organize medical care by sending physicians and equipment with their armies to help wounded soldiers. -
Period: 400 to 800
Dark Age
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500
Stopped Study of Medicine
The study of medicine was stopped for a period of 1,000 years after the Roman Empire was conquered by the Huns. During this time, medicine was only practiced in convents and monasteries and the church believed that life and death was in Gods hands. -
700
How Do They Treat Disease?
While the main source of treatment was prayer, herbal mixes were also used. During this time, the care was custodial. -
Period: 800 to 1400
Middle Age
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1100
Epidemics
During this time, there were several uncontrolled diseases that killed millions of people. Some examples include, smallpox, diphtheria, syphilis, and tuberculosis. -
Period: 1350 to
Renaissance
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1450
Rebirth
During the Renaissance, there were many scientific developments such as the building of universities and medical schools for research, the acceptance of dissection of the body for study, and the printing press and publishing of books. -
Period: 1501 to
16th and 17th Centuries
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1515
Leonardo Da Vinci
- studied and recorded the anatomy of the body
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1550
Gabriele Fallopius
- discovered the fallopian tubes of the female body
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1563
Bartolommeo Eustachio
- discovered the tube leading from the ear to the throat.
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William Harvey
- used his knowledge to learn physiology and was able to understand blood circulation and the pumping of the heart
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Antonie von Leeuwenhoek
- invented the microscope so that people could see the bacteria that is smaller than the eye can see
- scraped his teeth and found the bacteria that causes tooth decaying.
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Apothecaries
Apothecaries, now known as pharmacies started during this time. -
Period: to
18th Century
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Benjamin Franklin
- discovered bifocals
- found that colds can be passed from person to person.
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Medical Students Learning
Medical school expanded during this time. Students now attended in person lectures, observed patients at bedside, and dissected the patients body when they died to understand what happened on a deeper level. This opened the medical field to a wider range of people, leading Elizabeth Blackwell to be the first female to become a physician in 1849. -
Joseph Priestley
He discovered the oxygen element and that plants refresh air that have lost their oxygen, making it useable for respiration. -
Edward Jenner
He discovered a method of vaccination for smallpox, saving millions and leading to immunization and preventative medicine. -
Rene Laennec
She invented the stethoscope, made out of wood. This tool increased the ability to hear the heart and lungs. -
Period: to
19th and 20th Centuries
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Ignaz Semmelweis
He discovered the cause of childbed fever by finding that when midwives delivered babies the mothers were less likely to get this fever after giving birth. However, when physicians were the ones delivering the babies, they came straight from dissecting dead bodies without washing their hands. This transferred bacteria from the dead bodies to the women and caused infections. Once his studies were proved correct, hand washing became an important everyday practice to stop the spread of disease. -
Florence Nightingale
She became a nurse despite many people telling her it was “unsuitable for a respectable lady”. During the Crimean War, she took a group of 38 women to care for soldiers with cholera. There, she became famous for her dedication to nursing. She then devoted her life to preparing reports on the need for better sanitation and management of hospitals. Her overall goal was to gain effective training for nurses. -
Louis Pasteur
- discovered that tiny microorganisms were everywhere and proved that they could cause disease
- found that warming milk prevents the growth of bacteria -created a vaccine for rabies -known as the “Father of Microbiology”
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Dmitri Ivanovski
He discovered that some diseases are caused by microorganisms that cannot be seen even with a microscope. These are called viruses and can cause many diseases such as rabies, measles, chicken pox, and influenza. -
Joseph Lister
-used carbolic acid on wounds to kill germs that cause infection
-the first doctor to use an antiseptic during surgery -
Ernst Von Bergmann
-developed asepsis
-created a way to keep areas germ- free during surgery -
Robert Koch
-created the culture plate method
-isolated the bacterium that causes tuberculosis
-introduced the importance of cleanliness and sanitation in preventing disease from spreading -
Paul Ehrlich
- discovered the effect of medicine on disease causing microorganisms
- found a treatment for syphilis
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Wilhelm Roentgen
- discovered x- rays
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Anesthesia
Before the 19th century physicians used herbs and alcohol to ease the pain of surgery. Sometimes they would even resort to choking patients so they were unconscious during surgery. During the 19th and 20th centuries, people began to use different drugs as aesthetics to put patients into a deep sleep during surgery. -
Sir Alexander Fleming
-found that penicillin killed life- threatening bacteria -
Sigmund Freud
- discovered the conscious and unconscious parts of the mind
- found that mind and body work together
- studies are the basis of psychology and psychiatry
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Gerhard Domagk
- discovered sulfonamide compounds (first medication effective in killing bacteria)
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Jonas Salk
- discovered a dead polio virus could cause immunity to poliomyelitis
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Albert Sabin
- used a live polio virus vaccine to immunize babies
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Francis Crick and James Watson
- discovered the molecular structure of DNA, modeling how DNA replicates itself and how hereditary information is coded on it
- won the Nobel piece prize for this discovery
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Christian Barnard
- performed first successful heart transplant
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Ben Carson
- separated Siamese twins and preformed hemispherectomies
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Period: to
21st Century
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Anti- VEGF Treatments
- a treatment for a disease in the retina of your eye
- clears vision for 1 in 3 patients
- usually at least stabilizes vision
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Multi- Drug Resistant Tuberculosis Treatment
Research by HMS Department of Social Medicine proved that community based outpatient treatment programs successfully treated people infected with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis. -
Cholesterol Mechanism
Dana- Farber researchers find a mechanism in the liver that explains how eating foods rich in saturated- fats and trans-fatty acids causes elevated blood levels of bad cholesterol and triglycerides that increase the risk of heart disease and certain cancers. -
How Covid Causes Loss of Smell
Neurobiologists discover the mechanism behind the loss of smell- the main Covid- 19 symptom. They also identify a class of support cells in the nose and forebrain. -
How Brain Senses Infection
HMS cell biologists discover specific airway neurons when they do a study on mice that alert the brain to the presence of influenza. This illuminates a basic mechanism of pathogen detection and its relation to the nervous system. The work could inform the design of more-effective flu therapies.