Who were the first doctors?
The beginnings of medicine go back to prehistoric times. But
for thousands of years, medicine was based largely on superstition.
We know very little about prehistoric medicine. But people
must have learned a good deal about the human body as they treated wounds and
broken bones.
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Among the best of the ancient doctors were the Egyptians. By
about 1500 B.C. they had developed a large vocabulary of special medical words
and were experimenting in surgery and pharmacy.
Who is known as the
father of medicine?
In about 400 B.C. the Greek physician Hippocrates founded the
first school of medicine on the island of Cos.
Doctors at the Hippocratic School of Medicine were taught
that diseases were the result of parts of the body not working properly, rather
than of possession by demons.
However, Hippocrates and
his followers did not know enough about the structure of the human body. They
believed that diseases were caused by an imbalance of four vital fluids, or ‘humors’
– blood, bile, phlegm and black bile.
Over 50 books were written by Hippocrates and other members
of the school. The medical code of practice is called the Hippocratic. Oath also
dates from this time.
Who was Galen?
Galen was one of the greatest Greek anatomists. His ideas
remained popular for hundreds of years.
Galen was born in Pergamum (now in Turkey). When he was about
30 years old he became a physician at the gladiatorial school there. Later he
settled in Rome and began studying anatomy. He studied several animals but
not humans.
Galen worked out an idea of how the body’s physiological
system worked. The body was supposed to contain spirits that ebbed and flowed
through the arteries, veins and nerves.
Many of Galen’s ideas
were wrong, as they were based on theory and old textbooks, rather than the
study of human anatomy. But they remained popular until the 1500s.
Who first practised
acupuncture?
Acupuncture – the use of needles inserted in the body – has
been used in Chinese medicine for thousands of years.
In the Chinese Taoist religion order in the body depends on
two opposite states called yang and yin. Yang is associated with light, the
Sun, the South, masculinity and dryness.
Yin is associated with
darkness, the Moon, the north, feminity and wetness. All illness is thought to
be an imbalance between these two states.
Acupuncture is used to restore the balance of yang and yin.
The needles vary from 2 to 25 centimetres in length. They are inserted at one
or more of over 800 points lying along certain lines on the human body.
The needles may be left in for several hours. This form of
treatment is still used today and surgery is often performed using acupuncture
instead of anaesthetics.
Who was Paracelsus?
Paracelsus (1493-1541) was a Swiss physician. His real name
was Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim. He was a vain man and lived up to his
middle name. He took the name Paracelsus because it meant ‘better than Celsus’,
a popular Roman physician.
Paracelsus made several important contributions to medicine.
For example, he wrote the first work on an occupational disease –‘Miner's sicknesses.
He also insisted on cleanliness as being essential for good health.
He was the first to use laudanum and is sometimes called the
father of anaesthesia. One of his most important ideas was that alchemists
should study how to make medicines and not gold.
Paracelsus became a Professor of Medicine at Basle University
in 1527. Before starting his first lecture he publicly burned books by Galen.
This emphasized his idea that medicine should be studied by referring to human
patients instead of just textbooks.
Who made the first
artificial limbs?
Ambroise Pare (1510-1590) was a French surgeon. He improved
the practice of surgery in several ways and devised several ingenious artificial
limbs.
In the 1500s surgery was not practiced by physicians. Instead, it was one of the specialities of the haircutting profession. As a boy, Pare
started as a barber’s apprentice.
In 1541 he qualified as a barber-surgeon and joined the army.
Eventually, he became a surgeon to the French King Henry II and the King’s three
sons, who later succeeded him.
Pare was a popular surgeon, largely because of the
improvements he introduced. For example, he gave up the practice of cauterizing
wounds with boiling oil. Instead, he teed off the exposed arteries and covered
the wounds with simple dressings.
Pare devised several artificial limbs. Among these was an arm
that could be bent at the elbow and a hand with moveable fingers.
Who was the greatest early
anatomist?
Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564), a Flemish physician, made the
first really accurate studies of human anatomy.
Galen’s ideas about human anatomy persisted throughout the
Middle Ages. This was partly because anatomists did not perform
their own dissections.
The first to change this practice was an Italian, Mondino de
Luzzi (1275-1326), who wrote the first book devoted entirely to anatomy. However, the study of anatomy remained much the same until the time of Vesalius.
Vesalius taught anatomy at several Italian universities. Like
de Luzzi, he began to do his own dissections, mostly because he was appalled at
how badly dissections were being done by anatomy assistants.
After much research, he
wrote one of the greatest books in the history of science. It was called De
Corporis Humani Fabrica (‘on the structure of the Human Body’). One of its
illustrations is shown here.
Why are antibiotics
important?
Antibiotics are chemical substances that can destroy or stop
the growth of certain germs in the human body. They are very important in the
area of medicine because they are very effective anti-infectious drugs. They
help the body to fight disease.
The first antibiotic to receive attention and importance was
penicillin. The name antibiotics were first used for these medicines in 1942,
derived from the Greek words meaning “against life”.
The concept was put forward scientifically by P. Vuillemin in
1889 as “one creature destroying the life of another to sustain its
own”. Vuillemin had referred to this active agent as an “antibiotic.”
Even in 1942, the full importance of these antibiotic
substances in nature was not recognized. Although penicillin was discovered by
Sir Alexander Fleming, only after much research and experiments many other
antibiotics were isolated in pure form and their real importance in fighting
against different diseases realized.
Many antibiotics are made from microbes. Microbes are tiny
living things such as bacteria and moulds. The microbes used in making different
antibiotics are selected according to their ability to produce chemicals that
attack and destroy the microbes of disease.
Because of the antibiotics many dreaded diseases have been
controlled and the average duration of many infectious diseases has decreased.
These drugs are also effective in preventing complications that often follow severe illnesses. Antibiotics can be administered in the body by injection, orally or topically according to the requirement.