History of medicine

Meerim Dzholochieva
 History provides a background for the
development of understanding and coping with
health problems of communities.
 All societies have had to face the realities of
disease and death, and develop concepts and
methods to manage them.
 These form part of a world view associated with a
set of religious or scientific beliefs, which in turn
help to determine the curative and preventive
approaches to health.
 The history of medicine is the story of the search
for effective means of preventing disease in the
population.
 Epidemic and endemic infectious disease
stimulated thought and innovation in disease
prevention on a pragmatic basis, often before the
scientific basis of causation was established.
 The prevention of disease in the population
revolves around defining diseases, measuring their
occurrence and seeking effective interventions.
Religious and societal health beliefs
influenced approaches to explaining and
attempting to control communicable disease
by sanitation, town planning, and provision
of medical care.
 Prehistoric
(Primitive)Medicine
Prehistoric man evolved from earlier life
forms between 40,000-10,000 BC to
become modern man organized in
hunting bands in all the major
landmasses.
 Health and Disease
 Judging from what we know of present-day primitive
cultures, religion, magic, and medical treatment were
seen in prehistory as inseparable from each other.
 The supernatural world was immanent in all things,
affecting one's health, livehood, and social activities,
but not all illnesses were thought to be religiously or
magically generated.
 Primitive man apparently often distinguished
between ordinary conditions (such as old age, coughs,
colds, and fatigue) and illnesses caused by spirits and
evil forces that required the special services of a
medicine man, shaman, or witch doctor.
 The primitive patient and healer, believing in
and seeking supernatural origins for most
happenings, including sickness, were
psychologically prepared for the effectiveness
of magic. Illness could result, for instance, from
the projection of an evil force or foreign object
into a person by magic or sorcery. Even at a
distance an effigy (or a hair or discharge from
the body) could be manipulated by certain
people to make the victim sicken or die.
Also, the dead often lingered in spirit form, trying
to take over the bodies of the living. Some
primitive funeral ceremonies were based on
diverting the spirit of the departed from its
intentions by appeasement with offerings or by
preventing the spirit from recognizing members
of the family. On the other hand, in addition to
the risk of being possessed by a spirit, there was a
danger of losing one's own soul.
 As for the mentally ill, primitive societies have
shown the same variety of attitudes as advanced
cultures. To some a deranged individual might
appear to harbor an evil spirit and was therefore
to be shunned, maltreated, or killed; to others the
spiritual forces inside the person were worthy of
respect. Among the Eskimos and Siberian peoples,
psychotic behavior might signify the qualifications
for becoming a shaman, who was chosen, or chose
himself, just because of psychic experiences.
The shamans - the first
medicine men
 Shamans (cont.)
 A man's entrance into this calling might
follow a recurring dream, a strong sense of
mission, or an overt demonstration of
unusual psychic power. Apprenticeship to
an experienced doctor was common, and
rituals and trials often accompanied his
training. Women could also follow this
special career, and in many primitive
societies they were fully accepted as healers
and sorcerers.
 Shamans
 Since in olden times anything abnormal was
ascribed to spirit possession, any striking mental or
physical abnormality constituted qualification for
being a medicine man.
 Many of these men were epileptic, many of the
women hysteric, and these two types accounted for
a good deal of ancient inspiration as well as spirit
and devil possession.
 Shamans (cont.)
 In virtually none of the primitive societies was
entrance into this vocation taken lightly. Among
the American Indians and also in the African
Congo, a doctor could amass wealth but was
vulnerable to attack if his medicine was "bad";
that is, if he did not utilize all the accepted
methods. The outcome did not always have to be
successful, but the techniques were expected to be
above reproach. This resembles our contemporary
legal strictures requiring medical procedures to
conform to the standards of the community.
 The shaman was the
ranking medicine man,
the ceremonial
fetishman, and the
focus personality for
all the practices of
evolutionary religion.
 Shaman’s «accessories»
The healer required special accessories. The
shaman of Siberia had his drum, a distinctive
hat, sometimes a mask, and a voluminous coat
containing many magical and symbolic items.
The North American medicine man carried a
complex store of therapeutic and religious
items in his medicine bag (which was
sometimes a human scrotum) : parts of animal
and human bodies, plants, sticks, stones, and
instruments such as a sucking tube.
 Astrology
 Primitive astrology was a world-wide belief
and practice; dream interpreting also
became widespread.
 All this was soon followed by the
appearance of those temperamental shaman
who professed to be able to communicate
with the spirits of the dead.
 Methods
 Disease was treated by chanting, howling, laying on of hands,
breathing on the patient, and many other techniques. In later
times the resort to temple sleep, during which healing
supposedly took place, became widespread.

 Treatment could be complicated, involving elaborate

ceremonies, chants, mystical signs, charms, and fetishes. The
African witch doctor might ensnare the offending spirit in a
cockroach enticed into a basket trap by bits of food or blood.
The Amerindian medicine man might spend days in dancing,
shouting, and beating drums. The point of the healing rites
was to drive out evil spirits, lure back a lost soul, or propitiate
an offended god.
 The medicine men
eventually essayed
actual surgery in
connection with
temple slumber;
among the first
operations was that of
trepanning the skull to
allow a headache spirit
to escape.
 Methods (cont.)
A special type of therapy indigenous to
American Indians of the West was the sand
painting. Elaborate, colored designs were
constructed in the sand to provide a
medium through which the spirits could act
to cure a sick person. The paintings were
begun at sundown and had to be destroyed
by the next nightfall lest this powerful
medicine cause harm rather than good.
 Methods (cont.)
 Sometimes a more direct attack was
mounted, as for example by sucking,
cupping, bleeding, fumigating, and using
steam baths. Among American Indians the
practice of appearing to suck out an
offending object from a patient's ear, scalp,
or other part was common, but it is
probable that removing the foreign object
was to the medicine man as much a
symbolic act as it was deception.
 Purging very early became a routine
treatment, and the values of raw cocoa and
quinine were among the earliest
pharmaceutical discoveries.
 Primitive surgery
 Surgery consisted principally of treatment for wounds
and injuries to the bones.
 Hemorrhage was controlled by pressure, tourniquet,
cautery, and styptic plant substances, for ligature of
blood vessels was apparently unknown.
 Although amputations were performed, they seem to
have been mainly ritualistic.
 Removal of spears and arrows was sometimes
accomplished with great skill. Small abscesses were
drained, and the tribes of the Great Lakes region are
said to have opened abscesses of the chest cavity.
 Herbal Medicine
 Herbal medicine is the oldest form of healthcare known
to mankind.
 Primitive man observed and appreciated the great
diversity of plants available to him. The plants
provided food, clothing, shelter, and medicine.
 Herbs had been used by all cultures throughout history.
 Herbalists use the leaves, flowers, stems, berries, and
roots of plants to prevent, relieve, and treat illness.
From a "scientific" perspective, many herbal treatments
are considered experimental. The reality is, however,
that herbal medicine has a long and respected history.
Many plant components are now synthesized
in large laboratories for use in
pharmaceutical preparations. For example,
vincristine (an antitumor drug), digitalis (a
heart regulator), and ephedrine (a
bronchodilator used to decrease respiratory
congestion) were all originally discovered
through research on plants
 Marshmallow root is a demulcent herb,
soothing to inflamed or irritated mucous
membranes, such as a sore throat or
irritated digestive tract.
 Hyacinth is a diuretic that encourages
tissues to give up excess water.
 Yarrow is a time-honored cold and fever
remedy that may once have been used much
as aspirin is today.
Much of the medicinal use of plants seems to
have been developed through observations
of wild animals, and by trial and error.
Thank you