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- Illness and diseases were a punishment from the Gods
- Tribal witch doctors treated illness with ceremonies
- Herbs and plants used as medicines (morphine and digitalis)
- Trepanation or trephining to create a hole in the skull
- Average life span 20 years
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- Physicians were priests
- Bloodletting or leeches used as medical treatment
- Average life span 20 years
- Oldest historic phase of medicine
- First to use and record advanced medical practices
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- Believed in the need to treat the whole body by curing the spirit and nourishing the body
- Recorded a pharmacopoeia of medications based mainly on the use of herbs
- Used therapies such as acupuncture
- Began to search for medical reasons for illness
- Average life span was 20-30 years
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- First to observe the human body and the effects of disease – led to modern medical sciences.
- Believed illness is a result of natural causes
- Used therapies such as massage, art therapy, and herbal treatment
- Average life span 25-35 years
- Based largely upon religious beliefs
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- Established first hospital (caring for solders in their homes)
- First public health and sanitation systems by building sewers and aqueducts
- Average life span 25-35 years
- Galen influenced both roman and European medicine
- Focused on public health
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- Began after the fall of the Roman Empire
- Emphasis on saving the soul and study of medicine was prohibited
- Monks and priests treated patients with prayer
- Average life span 20-30 years
- They used "bloodletting"
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- Renewed interest in medical practices of Greek and Romans -
- Bubonic Plague killed 75% of population in Europe and Asia
- Average life span 20-35 years
- Used leeches
- Medical practitioners were also still heavily influenced by Galen
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- Dissection of body led to increased understanding of anatomy and physiology
- Invention of printing press allowed medical knowledge to be shared
- Average life span 30-40 years
- Increase in anatomical knowledge
- Physicians developed better cures
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- Cause of disease still not known – many people died from infections
- Invention of the microscope allowed physicians to see disease-causing organisms.
- Apothecaries led to development of pharmacies
- First vaccination developed – smallpox
- Average life span 35-45 years
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- Benjamin Franklin invented bifocals
- Viruses discovered in 1892
- Found out how white blood cells protect against disease
- Average life span 90-100 years
- The standards for Privacy of Individually Identifiable Health Information, required under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA) of 1996, went into effect in 2003
