Treatments:

Injuries/illnesses:

-Made charms to ward off evil spirits

-Broken limbs (mud casts)

-Mud casts for broken limbs

-Headaches (Trephining)

-Herbal remedies made from plants/herbs and

honey

-Soar throats/Cuts etc. (herbal remedies)

-Trephining to release evil spirits

-Wounds

-Fevers

-Sweat lodges for pain/fevers

Who treated the ill:

-The medicine man (who could communicate
with the Gods)

-Women (made home remedies)

Why people died:

-Those who were ill were left behind because the tribe has to
keep moving to keep up with the herd (for food) - starvation
-People did not survive from Trephining
-Many died from gangrene (infected open wounds)
-Polluted water supplies (by animals)

Hunter-gatherers (19-25)

-Severe bleeding and blood loss (hunting/war wounds)

Farmers(20-27)

-Fever (very common)

Treatments:
-Simple Surgery (cutting out swellings,
sewing up wounds, trephining to ease pain)
-Herbal remedies made from plants/herbs
honey and trading ingredients (e.g cinnamon)

Theories:
-Blocked Channels (natural theory), people stayed
healthy as long as blood, air and water flowed through
the channels around the body (undigested food would
cause blockage)
-Gods and spirits caused diseases

-Charms, Prayers and Chants

-Purging

Developments:
-Discovered and developed writing
-Found many organs in the body (although did not know
function)

Factors Helping and Hindering:

-War allowed doctors to discover organs from wounded and
injured soldiers improved knowledge of anatomy

-Religion prevented dissection (believed that the body is

-Bronze surgical instruments (developed metal working skills) needed for afterlife so should be preserved)

-Purging
Specialist Doctors e.g eye diseases and stomach or
rectum etc
General Doctors
Priests

-However Religion encouraged cleanliness so youre

respectful and stay at peace with the gods.

Treatments:
-Prayers

Theories:

-Herbal remedies from minerals and animal parts

-4 humours

-Rest, diet, exercise (Asclepia)

-Gods and spirits caused diseases

-Purging and Bleeding

-Opium, Alcohol and Wine to stop infections

Anatomy:
-Aristotles work on the importance of
the heart

Public Health:

-Discoveries at Alexandria about the

brain and the heart

-Doctors emphasises the value of good

cleanliness

Healers:

-People took care of themselves

-Priests at Asclepia

-A few toilets were maid

-Priests at the temple

-Specialist doctors

Discoveries about the body:

Public Health:

-Doctors knew about Greek and Roman discoveries but made -Hard to keep towns clean because it was full of animals and
none of their own and dissection was only carried out to
houses were overcrowded
illustrate what Galen had said
-The government and the King did not do anything to improv
public health, they believed that their role was to protect the
country and keep order
-Epidemic diseases (plague) could not be stopped

Treatments:

Ideas about the causes of illness:

-Simple Surgery on visible tumours and wounds

-No change, they still believed it was caused by God, and they
still followed Hippocrates theory of unbalanced humours

-Trephining

-But came up with a natural theory that miasma caused

disease
-Surgeons used wine, vinegar and honey to clean wounds but
-Some minority groups were blamed such as Jews
could not prevent heavy bleeding or infections
-Opium Plants to dull pain

-Prayers and Charms

-Herbal remedies
-Rest, diet, exercise
-Purging and Bleeding

Treatments:
-Rest, diet and exercise

-Herbal remedies made from plants/herbs honey and

new trading ingredients from abroad. Successful
remedies were written down and passed from mother
to daughter
-Smoking (tobacco used to cure toothaches, joint
pains, wounds and against the black plague)

Theories:
-Par, Harvey, Vesalius theories were learnt but was not fully
accepted till later on
-Galen and Hippocrates theory of humours were learnt and
essential to them. Still a very heavy influence. Also Ibn Sina
-Believed that God sent the plague on them so they prayed
often. But had a natural theory that miasma caused Black
plague so fires were often lit in the streets

-Purging, continued to believe illness was due to

unbalanced humours
-Prayer

Birth of Enquiry

Developments:

Public Health:

-Invention of the microscope in the

1600s allowed scientists for the first
time to see tiny organisms but no one
connected this to disease

-After the first plague (1348), it didnt completely disappear

and government did not issue any orders to clean the towns
which were overcrowded and dirty
-After the second plague (1665), houses were ordered to
sweep the street outside their door and animals were not to be
kept in the city. It only helped a little

Jenner

Smallpox:

Blackwell

-Treatment was inoculation (spreading pus from a smallpox pustule into a

cut in the skin of a healthy person some were lucky developing only a
weak form of smallpox (antibodies), they did not know how this worked)

Discoveries:

-Inoculations became good business, making people wealthy because

treatment was costly, but there were dangers: There was a chance that
person could catch the full disease and dies, they could accidentally pass it
on to someone else and many could not afford inoculations

-Koch identified specific bacterium

Smallpox Treatment:
-Vaccination (Jenner) against smallpox

Koch

-Germ Theory
-Pasteurs discovery of vaccination
method to treat a range of diseases

Nightingale

Pasteur
Theories:
-FADING THEORY: Disease was caused by God or was caused
because of unbalanced humours
-Still believed miasma caused illness
-Spontaneous Generation (automatically generated by decay)
-Germ Theory (Pasteur believed illness was caused by bacteria)

Anderson

Changes - Healers:

Seacole

-Nursing reform (Seacole and Nightingale,

improving conditions and hygiene, and
tending to the wounded on the battlefield)
-First women to become doctors (Elizabeth
Anderson and Elizabeth Blackwell (US))

New Discoveries:
-James Simpsons chloroform was a new and
effective anaesthetic allowing longer and deeper
operations
-Listers Carbolic Acid was a very effective
antiseptic, starting aseptic surgery so less germs
were carried and death rates lowered
-Microscopes developed to study bacteria/germs in
detaillead to Koch, Pasteur and Jenner's
discoveries. Joseph Lister developed a much more
powerful microscope

Lister

Simpson

New Discoveries:

Hill

-Chadwicks Public Health Act 1848

-Snows discovery that dirty water caused cholera

-Octavia Hills act of cleanliness led to similar

schemes and persuaded the government to pass the
1975 Artisans Dwelling Act

Snow
The Great Clean-Up:
-Based on 1875 Public Health Act
-Locals councils forced to provide clean water,
public toilets, and proper sewers/drains
-Councils forced to appoint a Medical Officer of
Health and sanitary inspectors to inspect public
health facilities
-Other laws were passed helping improve standards
of housing, stopped pollution of rivers

Public Health:

Chadwick

-Passed a Public Health Act1848 setting up a national board of

health: Tried to improve water supply and sewers and medical
officers to inspect encouraged reform
-Most had to share outside toilets and got water from a street
pump

-Toilets cleaned by night men and waste was carried away by

carts
-Taxes to pay for cleaning streets and building sewers and
water pipes
-Government becomes more involved

-1875 enforces reform on towns with high death rates

Theories:
-Germ Theory
-Genetic Causes (Inherited - DNA)

Florey and Chain

Discoveries and Treatments:

-Chemical drugs (sulphonamides) e.g. magic bullet
-Antibiotic (Penicillin- discovered by Fleming and
developed and mass produced by Florey and Chain)
-Genetic Medicine (developed after the discovery of
DNA structure and what each part does)

Fleming

Crick and Watson

Barnard

Surgery:
-Discovery of blood type groups which enabled blood
transfusions
-McIndoe introduced plastic surgery to the world
(originally skin grafts for soldiers who were severely
disfigured), now used for a range of different purposes
(beauty)
-Transplants (after effective anaesthetics), surgeons
could perform more complex operations (first heart
transplant)

Knowledge of body:
-Discovery of DNA allowed to link with inherited
factors from parent to child
-Invented X-Rays to examine bones and fractures in
detail

-Keyhole and micro surgery (better technology)

allowed surgery to be performed under a tiny hole

McIndoe

Booth

Beveridge

Bevan
Public Health:
-Government became increasingly concerned about
the welfare of citizens and became more involved
with public health schemes
-In the 1900s help was given to the poor, sick, and
unemployed (benefits), paid by tax-payers (1911
National Insurance Act) introduced by Lloyd George
-1942 Beveridge Report recommended the NHS
scheme (doctors, nurses etc. became government
employed and basically NHS set up today)

Lloyd George

-1948 NHS was set up providing free healthcare for

all citizens, paid by the government and tax-payers
increasing life expectancy and decreasing death rates

Rowntree