Medical and Nursing History

The early beginnings

Very Early

• Primitive humans weresuperstitious and believed that illness and disease was caused by spirits.

• Tribal doctors tried to exorcise the spirits out, and used herbs and plants.

• Foxglove• (digitalis)• Cinchona tree • (quinine)• Nightshade• (belladonna and atropine)

Egyptians (3000-300 BC)

• Earliest people to keep accurate health records

• Identified certain diseases• Used medicines to heal

diseases• Learned the art of splinting• Average life span 20-30 years

Ancient Greeks (1200-200 BC)

• First to study the cause of disease• Kept accurate records• Understood importance of searching for

new information• Ancient times did not allow for dissection

of bodies. Learned the external observation (Hippocrates 469-377 B.C.)

• Hippocrates wrote standard of ethics• Oath of Hippocrates

Greeks Continued….Rome (753 BC-410 AD) Begins

• Observed and measured the effects of disease.

• Discovered that some diseases caused by lack of sanitation

• Romans were smart and learned from the Greeks.

• Romans developed sewers and aqueducts

• Romans build public baths

More Romans• First to organize healthcare• First to send doctors and equipment

into battle• Physicians kept a room in their house

for the sick (beginning of hospitals)• Doctors were paid by the roman

government• They wore a death mask with a spice

filled beak.• Average Life Span 25-35 years.

The Dark Ages (400-800 a.d.) & Middle ages(800-1400 A.D.)

• When the study of science stopped.

• For over 1000 years medicine was practiced in convents and monasteries

• Priest had no interest in how the body functioned

• Epidemics caused millions of death

• Best know was the Bubonic plague (The black plague) 60 million people alone.

Middle Ages Continues

• Arab Physicians used knowledge of chemistry to advance pharmacology

• Rhazes became known as the Arab Hippocrates– Based diagnoses on observations– Began the use of animal gut as suture

material• Arabs began requiring physicians to pass

examinations and obtain licenses• Average life span 20-35 years

• Rebirth of science of medicine• Dissection of the Body began• Michelangelo and da Vinci used dissection in order to

draw the human body• First Chairs of medicine created at Oxford and

Cambrigde in England• First anatomy book published• Servetus (1511-1553) describe the circulatory system• Bacon (1214-1294)

– Promoted chemical remedies to treat diseases– Researched optics and refraction

Average life span 30-40 years

The Renaissance (1350-1650 AD)

16th and 17th CenturiesCauses of Diseases still not known

Many people died from infections and puerperal fever (childbirth)

Pare (1510-1590) Father of modern SurgeryUse of ligatures to bind arteriesEliminated use of boiling oil to cauterize woundsImproved treatment of Fx, promoted artificial Limbs

Fallopian (1523-1562) ID fallopian tubes and described tympanic membrane Van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723) invented the microscopeApothacaries made, prescribed, and sold medications

Average life Span 35-45 years

18th Century• New ways of teaching medicine

developed. Lecture, Laboratory, and bedside.

• Disease processes explored after patient death

• Laennec invented the stethoscope.• B. Franklin’s discovered bifocals and

how colds are transmitted• Jenner Discovered a method for smallpox

vaccinations• Lind prescribe lime juice to prevent

scurvy• Average life span 40-50 years

19th Century• Royal College of Surgeons founded in London• First successful blood transfusion was

performed• Fliedner started first nurse training program in

Germany 1836.Provided Florence Nightingale with her

trainingSemmelweis encouraged physicians to wash

hands with limes.Anesthetics first used by dentist William MortonChloroform first used during surgery.

19th Century Continued• Elizabeth Blackwell first female physician in

U.S. 1849

• 1854 Nightingale established efficient and sanitary nursing unit

• 1860 Began professional education for nurse in London

• Dix was appointed first Superintendent of Female nurse in the Army 1861

• 1863-International Red Cross Founded

• Lister used disinfectants and antiseptics during surgery

19th Century Continued• Barton founded the American Red Cross in

1881

• Pasteur created rabies vaccine in 1885

• 1892- Viruses discovered

• 1883-Wald established Henry St. Settlement in NYC

• 1895- X-rays were invented

• Average life span 40-60 years

20th Century• 1900- W. Reed demonstrated that mosquitoes

carry yellow fever

• 1922- insulin discovered to treat diabetes

• 1928- Penicillin discovered

• Sulfa drugs developed

• 1953- First heart lung machine used in open heart surgery

• 1954- First kidney transplant

• 1965- government enters the healthcare services

20th Century…..• 1973- First HMO established

• 1975- amniocentesis used

• Computerized axial tomography was developed

• 1981- AIDS was identified

• 1982- First Artificial heart implanted Jarvik-7

• 1984- HIV identified

• 1997- sheep cloned

• Average life span 60-70 years

THE FUTURE????