Medicine Through Time
1. Medicine in the Ancient World, c10 000BC – c500AD
 Prehistoric societies: the role of magic, parallels with traditional aboriginal societies.
 Ancient Egypt: supernatural and natural approaches to medicine; priests and
doctors; anatomy and surgery.
 Ancient Greece: the cult of Asclepios; the development of the Theory of the Four
Humours; Hippocratic medicine; Greek surgery; Alexandria; Greek public health and
the importance of healthy living.
 Ancient Rome: the influence of Greek medicine; surgery in Roman times; medicine in
the army; public health facilities in the Roman period.
 Key individuals: Aristotle; Hippocrates; Galen.
2. Medieval and Renaissance Medicine, c500 – 1700
 The impact of the fall of the Roman Empire on medicine.
 The nature and importance of Islamic medicine.
 The impact of superstition and Christianity on Medieval medicine.
 The medieval doctor: training and treatments.
 Continuing traditional methods: bleeding, wise woman, response to plagues.
 Medieval surgical treatments and knowledge.
 The challenging of medical authority: improved knowledge of anatomy and
physiology.
 Public health in the Middle Ages: attempts to improve and the reasons for the lack of
development.
 Public health problems; plagues and their treatment in the later Middle Ages and
seventeenth century, particularly the Black Death and Great Plague in London.
 Key individuals: Rhazes; Ibn Sina (Avicenna); Ibn Nafis; Paracelsus; Vesalius; Pare;
Harvey.
3. Medicine in the Industrial and Modern World, c1700 – present day
 Vaccination; the Germ Theory and its impact on the treatment of diseases; magic
bullets; Penicillin.
 The development of the medical and nursing professions; the role of women in
medicine.
 The role of the World Health Organisation in fighting disease and ill health.
 Modern issues in medicine: AIDS, the drugs revolution, problem drugs, alternative
medicines, superbugs, genetic engineering.
 Developments in anaesthetics, antiseptics, aseptic surgery.
 The impact of two world wars on surgery: plastic surgery, blood transfusions.
 The impact of technology: X-rays, transplant surgery, radiation therapy, keyhole
surgery.
 Problems of public health in urban and industrial areas after c1750.
 The nature and impact of epidemics, e.g. cholera, and attempts to deal with them.
 Changing local and national government involvement in public health; measures,
causes and consequences, including the 1848 and 1875 Public Health Acts.
 The nature of poverty c1900.
 Liberal Social Reforms: measures, causes and consequences.
 The impact of two world wars on Public Health.
 Public health problems between the wars: social conditions, poverty and housing;
attempted solutions.
 The National Health Service: measures, causes and consequences.
 Improved Public Health in the late 20th century: issues and actions.
 Key individuals: Jenner; Seacole; Nightingale; Pasteur; Koch; Blackwell; Garrett
Anderson; Ehrlich; Fleming; Florey and Chain; Crick and Watson; Simpson; Lister;
Halsted; McIndoe; Barnard; Chadwick; Snow; Hill; Booth; Rowntree; Lloyd George;
Beveridge; Bevan.