The History of Health Care

Principles of Health Science

Objectives• Historical facts and events are significant in

understanding the health care industry. • Survey and research the historical

significance of health care• Identify key events in the history of health

care• Recognize people in history who have

impacted the health care industry and their contributions to it.

Historical Times in Medicine• Ancient Medicine• Egyptian Medicine• Jewish Medicine• Greek Medicine• Roman Medicine• Dark and Middle Ages• Renaissance Medicine• 16th, 17th, 18th , 19th and 20th Century Medicine

• 21st Century (Now)

Ancient Times4000BC-3000BC

• Humans had to protect themselves from injury against predators

• Illness/disease caused by supernatural spirits

• Exorcise evil spirits

• Life Span was age 20

• Herbs and plants were used as medicine– Example Morphine from opium poppy

• relieves severe pain

Egyptians

• Earliest to keep accurate health records

• Superstitious

• Called upon gods

• Identified certain diseases

• Pharaohs kept many specialists (doctors)

Egyptians• Priests were the doctors

– Temples were places of worship, medical schools, and hospitals

– Only the priests could read the medical knowledge from the god Thoth

• Magicians were also healers

• Believed demons caused disease

Egyptians

• Some medical practices still used today– Enemas– Circumcision (4000 BC) preceded

marriage– Closing wounds– Setting fractures

Egyptians

• Eye of Horus

– 5000 years ago

– Magic eye

– good luck charm to guard against disease, suffering, and evil

– History: Horus lost vision in attack by Seth; mother (Isis) called on Thoth for help; eye restored

– Evolved into modern day Rx sign

Jewish Medicine• Concentrated on health rules for food,

cleanliness, and quarantine.

• Biblical Times: Moses studied hygiene and medicine at the temple of Egypt.

• Moses banned quackery (trickery) because God was the only physician. Thought of the “day of rest” was best for human welfare.

Greek Medicine• First to study causes of diseases

• Research helped eliminate superstitions

• Sanitary practices were associated

with the spread of disease• Hippocrates-Father of Medicine

– no dissection, only observations – took careful notes of signs/symptoms of

diseases – disease was not caused by supernatural forces– wrote standards of ethics which is the basis

for today’s medical ethics (Hippocratic Oath)

Greek Medicine• Aesculapius: staff and

serpent symbol of medicine; temples built in his honor became the first true clinics and hospitals

• Caduceus-staff and serpent symbol of medicine

Roman Medicine• Developed a sanitation system, flood

control

• beginning of public health

• public baths, public hygiene

• first to organize medical care and army medicine

• room in doctor's house became first hospital

• solid construction of homes

Dark Ages (400-800 A.D.) and Middle Ages (800-1400 A.D.)

• Medicine practiced only in convents and monasteries

• Life and death in God’s hands

• Realization that diseases are contagious• Terrible epidemics

– Bubonic plague (Black Death)– Small pox– Diphtheria– Syphilis– Measles– Typhoid fever– Tuberculosis

Renaissance Medicine (1350-1650 A.D.)

• Universities and medical schools for research

• Dissection

• Book publishing

16th & 17th Century

• Leonardo da Vinci

– anatomy of the body

16th and 17th Century

• Anton van Leeuwenhoek (1676)

– invented microscope

– observed microorganisms

16th & 17th Century• William Harvey

– circulation of blood

• Gabriele Fallopian – discovered fallopian tube

• Bartholomew Eustachus – discovered the

Eustachian tube

18th Century• Benjamin Franklin

– invented bifocals

– found that colds could be passed from person to person

• Laennec

– invented the stethoscope

19th & 20th Century• Louis Pasteur (1860 –

1895)– discovered that

microorganisms cause disease (germ theory of communicable disease)

• Joseph Lister– first doctor to use

antiseptic during surgery

19th & 20th Century• Wilhelm Roentgen

– discovered X-rays• Alexander Fleming

– discovered penicillin

• Also Anesthesia was discovered

– nitrous oxide, ether, chloroform

19th and 20th Century

• Robert Koch: Father of Microbiology; specific germ causes specific disease; identified germ causing TB (in 1880's it killed 1 out of 7)

19th and 20th Century

• Dmitri Ivanoski: discovered viruses i.e. poliomyelitis, rabies, measles, influenza, Chickenpox, German measles, herpes zoster, mumps

19th and 20th Century • Jonas Salk: discovered that a killed polio

virus would cause immunity to polio

1900 to 1945

• Acute infectious diseases (diphtheria, TB, rheumatic fever)

• No antibiotics,

• Hospitals were places to die

• Most doctors were general practitioners

1945 to 1975

1975 to now• AIDS

• HIV

• MRI’s

• Open heart surgery

• Life Span longer

• Moderate to Severe Obesity

• Diabetes

• Poor Diets

That’s it!