History of medicine
The history of medicine is both a study of medicine throughout history as well as a multidisciplinary field of study that seeks to explore and understand medical practices, both past and present, throughout human societies.[1]
This article is about the history of human medicine. For the book, see A History of Medicine.
The history of medicine is the study and documentation of the evolution of medical treatments, practices, and knowledge over time. Medical historians often drawn from other humanities fields of study including economics, health sciences, sociology, and politics to better understand the institutions, practices, people, professions, and social systems that have shaped medicine. When a period which predates or lacks written sources regarding medicine, information is instead drawn from archaeological sources.[1][2] This field tracks the evolution of human societies' approach to health, illness, and injury ranging from prehistory to the modern day, the events that shape these approaches, and their impact on populations.
Early medical traditions include those of Babylon, China, Egypt and India.
Invention of the microscope was a consequence of improved understanding, during the Renaissance. Prior to the 19th century, humorism (also known as humoralism) was thought to explain the cause of disease but it was gradually replaced by the germ theory of disease, leading to effective treatments and even cures for many infectious diseases. Military doctors advanced the methods of trauma treatment and surgery. Public health measures were developed especially in the 19th century as the rapid growth of cities required systematic sanitary measures. Advanced research centers opened in the early 20th century, often connected with major hospitals. The mid-20th century was characterized by new biological treatments, such as antibiotics. These advancements, along with developments in chemistry, genetics, and radiography led to modern medicine. Medicine was heavily professionalized in the 20th century, and new careers opened to women as nurses (from the 1870s) and as physicians (especially after 1970).
Early modern medicine[edit]
Places[edit]
England
In England, there were but three small hospitals after 1550. Pelling and Webster estimate that in London in the 1580 to 1600 period, out of a population of nearly 200,000 people, there were about 500 medical practitioners. Nurses and midwives are not included. There were about 50 physicians, 100 licensed surgeons, 100 apothecaries, and 250 additional unlicensed practitioners. In the last category about 25% were women.[126] All across England—and indeed all of the world—the vast majority of the people in city, town or countryside depended for medical care on local amateurs with no professional training but with a reputation as wise healers who could diagnose problems and advise sick people what to do—and perhaps set broken bones, pull a tooth, give some traditional herbs or brews or perform a little magic to cure what ailed them.
Late modern medicine[edit]
Germ theory and bacteriology[edit]
In the 1830s in Italy, Agostino Bassi traced the silkworm disease muscardine to microorganisms. Meanwhile, in Germany, Theodor Schwann led research on alcoholic fermentation by yeast, proposing that living microorganisms were responsible.
Leading chemists, such as Justus von Liebig, seeking solely physicochemical explanations, derided this claim and alleged that Schwann was regressing to vitalism.
In 1847 in Vienna, Ignaz Semmelweis (1818–1865), dramatically reduced the death rate of new mothers (due to childbed fever) by requiring physicians to clean their hands before attending childbirth, yet his principles were marginalized and attacked by professional peers.[161] At that time most people still believed that infections were caused by foul odors called miasmas.
Contemporary medicine[edit]
Antibiotics and antibiotic resistance[edit]
The discovery of penicillin in the 20th century by Alexander Fleming provided a vital line of defence against bacterical infections that, without them, often cause patients to suffer prelonged recovery periods and highly increased chances of death. Its discovery and application within medicine allowed previously impossible treatments to take place, including cancer treatments, organ transplants, to open heart surgery.[244] Throughout the 20th century, though, their overprescribed use to humans,[245] as well as to animals that need them due to the conditions of intensive animal farming,[246] has led to the development of antibiotic resistant bacteria.[244]
Themes in medical history[edit]
Racism in medicine[edit]
Racism has a long history in how medicine has evolved and established itself, both in terms of racism experience upon patients, professionals, and wider systematic violence within medical institutions and systems.[263][264] See: medical racism in the United States, race and health, and scientific racism.
