The Historical Journey of Medicine Observations - Research Paper Example

 Abstract This research paper on the History of Medicine is a chronological discourse of the history and advancement of medicine in the West from antiquity to the present. The paper examines and scans through the various healing techniques within their cultural context. It also studies the key developments in medicinal concepts and practices of the past and of the present. By examining the emergence of medicinal practices from as early as 800 BC, the paper traces the developments of western medical civilization through the classical and medieval practices finally arriving to the modern era of medicine. In this historical journey of medicine observations are also made on the ways in which this tradition was both lost and preserved during the medieval period. Its transformation into assorted medical, scientific and political revolutions during the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. And lastly, the transitions and technological shifts of the nineteenth and twentieth century and the present era of modern technological medicinal practices. Introduction Man is what he is because of his vulnerability to sickness and death. Right from the moment a newborn takes his first breath he is exposed to these vulnerabilities. 800 BC: Prehistoric Medicine As far the as the historians of medicine are certain, the Paleolithic people saw no peculiarity between magic, medicine and religion. To cure medical ailments magic, religious and spiritual practices were used. In primitive medicine, the element of supernatural was a vital aspect in all forms of diseases and healing. This was because most of the diseases or misfortunes were attributed to supernatural elements and magic was believed to be the most essential form of prevention, diagnoses or treatment of a disease. The people of this age accorded that an event cannot occur on its own, all happenings must have a reason or a cause, visible or invisible. Hence, for the diseases or ailments for which there was no obvious reason or a cause was thought to be the doing of evil spirits, Gods, ghosts and other super natural agents (Magner N. L., 1992). These forms of illness called for professional consultations from those who had the influence over the supernatural agents of ailments. In those times, the professional assistance came in the form of shamans, priest, herb-man, witch doctors, diviner and the likes. Among this wide array of healers, the most prolific was the shaman. The shaman treated his patients by the shamanic way of healing. Shamanic way of healing is a spiritual form of treatment, which is based on the belief that all forms of healing have a spiritual element. The healing process highlights the shamans communicating with the other realms of reality by entering altered states of consciousness. This journey of a shaman, to the other realms of reality helps the patient or the community to rediscover their connection to spirit and nature. In the days when shamanic healing was practiced, the shaman was the man responsible for the health of an individual and the community as well. The shamans believed that one could lead a healthy life if all the emotional, mental, physical and spiritual elements was in balance within an individual and as well as the community. Shaman was held as a community’s ritual leader, the herbalist and the mediator to the spirit world. To understand how a shaman heals or how shamanic healing works, it is important first to get accustomed to the fundamentals of shamanism. The concepts of shamanism are based on accessing the spirit or the energy field of anyone or anything. A shaman heals by working on the unseen realms of reality to create changes, which in turn create changes in the seen, physical and everyday reality. (Sivert M.P., n.d.). The other practices of healing that was evident during this pre-historic era were- letting the evil spirits escape the sick body. Healing diseases that were thought to be the doing of God or evil spirits. Almost all of the healing processes of this era had a spiritualistic and religious approach. The Paleolithic age was blanketed by superstitious beliefs and customs that influenced most of the healing processes. However, it was in this age that Trepanning, a type of surgery in which a hole is drilled into the human skull, hence exposing the ‘dura mater’ for the treatment of health problems related to intracranial diseases, was developed. The proofs of this development are those Paleolithic sites, where trepanned skulls were discovered (Magner N. L, 1992). The other significant contribution of this age to medicine was the “primitive pharmacopoeia” from which modern medicine emerged. The primitive healers of Paleolithic age were very much aware of the plants and animals around them. From botanical elements, the primitive healers were able to derive a number healing and curing agents in the form of analgesics, anesthetics, diuretics, emetics, hallucinogens, narcotics, purgatives, cathartics, febrifuges and even oral contraceptives (Magner N. L, 1992). From this primitive pharmacopoeia, the modern medicine was able to adopt the salicylic acid, quinine, ipecac, cocaine, colchicines, ergot, ephedrine, digitalis and many other drugs. The primitive form of medicine is more often than not time dismissed as mere superstitions, however, if the pages of medicinal history are turned over, many instances can be found where the primitive medical practices are in a common league with that of the ancient civilizations and as well as the modern medicinal practices. 450 BC-300 BC: Greek and Roman Medicinal Practices Ancient Greece The medicine of ancient Greece can be studied through the accomplishments and breakthroughs of one man, Hippocrates. Hippocrates of Cos was the lone towering figure of the ancient Greek medicine and has been considered, “the father of modern medicine.” He was the first man to publicly acknowledge that medicine and religion are two separate and wholly different entities, and that medicine is science. Hippocrates along with his followers was the first to describe many medical conditions and diseases. He was the first to give a detailed description of the clubbing of fingers, a vital sign for lung cancer, chronic suppurative lung disease and cyanotic heart disease. He was also the first physician to describe the ‘Hippocratic face’ in his work Prognosis. The Hippocratic face alludes to the change produced in the face by sickness, excessive evacuations and excessive hunger and by impending death. Hippocrates with many firsts to his name in the medicinal field was also one of the first physicians to classify illnesses as acute, chronic, endemic and epidemic. He was the first to incorporate the medical terms such as, “crisis, relapse, exacerbation, resolution, paroxysm, peak, and convalescence.” Hippocrates also made major contributions in the field of symptomatology, physical findings, surgical treatment and prognosis of thoracic empyema. A collection of around seventy odd early medical works from ancient Greece associated with Hippocrates and his teachings can be found in the ancient document the, “Hippocratic Corpus” Humoral Theory Due to the lack of proper equipments for diagnosing and healing, the Hippocratic physicians were forced to create a novel system through which the curing of diseases could be explained based upon the scientific theories that prevailed at that time. This novel system came to be known as the humoral theory of disease. This humoral theory approach of the Hippocratic medicine was based upon the Presocratic philosophical reflections about the relationship of the man to the world. And by the time the humoral theory began to gain acceptance, the philosophers of that era also concluded that both man and the world are governed by the same laws of nature. The two Presocratic theories that molded the humoral theory were- theory about change and how it occurred in the world and the assertion that contrasting elements are in constant contradiction to each other (Colarusso C., 1995). Four Humors The Hippocratic physicians attributed the cause of chronic diseases to the imbalance of one of the four humors in the body. The four humors being- blood, yellow bile, black bile and phlegm. Each humor was associated with a season of the year. For instance, the diagnosis of a cold caught in the winter would be due to a preponderance of phlegm and the same cold if caught in the summer, then it would be diagnosed to be the result of preponderance of phlegm. As for the treatment of these imbalance of humors, the Hippocratic physicians would first suggest a regimen and if the regimens did not work and more aggressive form of treatment was required then the physicians would administer drugs as per the humoral imbalance. The popular choice of drug was the hellebore, as it induced both diarrhea and vomiting, however if taken in large doses hellebore could even result in the death of the patient (Colarusso C., 1995). Venesection However, if the drugs failed to cure the patient, then a more aggressive method of treatment is adopted in the form of Venesection. According to this treatment, the physician would make a cut farthest from the hurting point, drawing blood which would be filled in a cup. This method was thought to be the most reasonable and logical one as this method would allow the humor to directly escape the body in the form of blood (Colarusso C., 1995). Cauterization Cauterization was a Hippocratic Physician’s last-ditch effort in the name of treatment. This form of treatment involved the burning of the skin to ‘consume’ the excess humor (Colarusso C., 1995). This was the how the humoral theory evolved based upon the Presocratic philosophic musings in ancient Greece and how this theory influenced the treatment of chronic diseases by the Hippocratic physicians. Ancient Rome In the medicinal field ancient Rome was also making great advancements. What Hippocrates was to the Greek medicine, Galen was to Roman medicine. Claudius Galen, developed a new system of medical knowledge that was based on the study of anatomy of human and animal bodies, rather than on philosophical speculations or musings. Galen was the first person to perform experiments on animals in order to study the workings of internal organs. He was the first person to make use of the pulse for diagnosis. His works on anatomy were used by the students of human anatomy till the 19th century. The invention of surgical instruments by the Romans and the surgical uses of forceps, scalpel, cautery, surgical needle and other such instruments was under the influence of the anatomical works of the Galen. In 157 A.D. Galen was appointed as the physician of the gladiators and later in 162 A.D. he become the personal physician of emperor Marcus Aurelius (Snitchler E. and Harris K., n.d) 500-1400 AD: The Middle Ages The fall of the Roman Empire during the middle age resulted in the worsening of health conditions due to the lack of proper public hygiene. The Europe in the middle ages saw people without proper access to clean drinking water and enough food. Hence people dying from diseases were common during this age. Medicinal practices were dominated by religious practices. Any form of sickness was attributed to punishment from God for the sins committed and the only way out from different maladies was praying for forgiveness. Traditional forms of treatment using herbal remedies or potions were seen as evil practices and witchcraft and henceforth banned by the church. During the Middle Ages surgery was a crude practice and often opium was used as anesthetic during the surgeries, while to prevent infections wounds were cleaned with wine. To add to the sorrows of the Middle Ages the Bubonic Plague also known as the Black Death broke out in Istanbul (Turkey) in 1347. The Bubonic Plague which is a form of fatal pneumonia and is highly contagious spread throughout Europe and it killed up to 90% of the total population in some areas. For this reason the middle ages is also referred to as the “Dark Ages”. It was during this age that the traditional medical practices were nearly lost to the religious dogmas of the church and superstitious beliefs (Snitchler E. and Harris K., n.d). 1400-1700: The Renaissance After the “Dark” Middle Ages, the Renaissance marked the rebirth and revival of ideas of the ancient Greece and Rome. Art, culture, medicine and science everything flourished during this period. In 1628, William Harvey made a major breakthrough in the field of medicine when he published his theory, that the heart acts as a muscular pump which results in the circulation of blood all around body through blood veins. Citations: 1. Magner L. N., 1992, A History of Medicine, second edition. FL: Taylor & Francis Group, LLC, 2005.  List of References: 1. Colarusso C., 1995, The Presocratic Influence upon Hippocratic Medicine, Tufts University, retrieved on 9th March, 2009, from: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/GreekScience/Students/Chad/pre-soc.html 2. Sivert M.P., n.d., What is Shamanism, Shamanic Healing Institute, retrieved on 9th March, 2009, from: http://www.shamanic-healing.org/whatissh.htm 3. Snitchler E. and Harris K., n.d, History of Abnormal Psychology, Northern Illinois University, retrieved on 9th March, 2009, from: http://www3.niu.edu/acad/psych/Millis/History/2002/mainsheet.htm Read More