HISTORY OF MEDICINE

SPIRITS

• Ancients drilled holes in people's heads
• Supposedly released the evil spirits that caused the disease.
• B.c. 7000

HUMORS

• Greek physician Hippocrates said that fluids, called humors, caused disease
• B.c 460-377

HERBAL TREATMENTS

• People used incense to attempt to cure people with the Black Death
• Black Death was caused by bacteria transmitted by rat fleas.
• A.D. 1330-1352

ANATOMY

• People begin to study anatomy
• Drawings were made of the human body
• 1400-1600

GERM THEORIES

• Louis Pasteur hypothesizes that disease is caused by small animals
• These animals are later identified bacteria and viruses
• 1857

ANTISEPTIC TECHNIQUE

• Joseph Lister finds that cleaning his tools reduces infection
• Bacteria from other infections stay on tools
• 1865

KOCHS POSTULATES

• Robert Koch finds four different conditions
• All four of these prove a pathogen causes disease
• 1883

APPLYING ANTISEPTIC TECHNIQUE

• Cities around the world start treating drinking water with chlorine
• This reduces the cases of cholera
• 1900s

ANTIBIOTICS

• Sir Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin
• Penicillin helps fight infection
• 1928

POLIO VACCINE

• Jonas Salks vaccine against polio becomes available
• The disease is eliminated in the US in 1994
• 1955

NEW DISEASES

• First cases of SARS spring up in China
• SARS affects the respiratory system
• 2002

POLIO COMEBACK

• Worldwide efforts increase to vaccinate people against polio
• The polio virus reemerges in fewer than ten people in the US
• 2005