Post by Mr Modica on May 29, 2013 18:53:25 GMT
Prehistoric men, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans and the medieval period all believed in supernatural causes of disease. Witchdoctors and Priests were like doctors, people prayed and wore charms, even in the Renaissance to ward off evil spirits (such as at the time of plague 1665) or believed in unproven theories like the Bezoar stone, which supposedly could cure all poisons.
All periods were also involved in natural cures though. Even medicine men had practical cures for broken legs, because they could see it and so explain the problem. Egyptians came up with the idea of the Blocked Channels after observing irrigation channels on the Nile and the inside of the human body. It was Hippocrates and the Theory of the Four Humours, which was developed by Galen into the Theory of the Opposites, which really put natural causes above supernatural causes. This does not mean that people stopped believing in supernatural causes overnight though, religion continued to play a major part in medicine.
This was because many people did not understand the new developments or simply did not like change. Jenner discovered this when he could not explain vaccination; Pasteur’s Germ theory was challenged by the Theory of Spontaneous Generation; whilst John Snow found it difficult to prove that cholera was not caused by miasma.
springwoodgcsehistory.blogspot.co.uk/p/medicine-through-time-overview.html (Miss Webster's site)
All periods were also involved in natural cures though. Even medicine men had practical cures for broken legs, because they could see it and so explain the problem. Egyptians came up with the idea of the Blocked Channels after observing irrigation channels on the Nile and the inside of the human body. It was Hippocrates and the Theory of the Four Humours, which was developed by Galen into the Theory of the Opposites, which really put natural causes above supernatural causes. This does not mean that people stopped believing in supernatural causes overnight though, religion continued to play a major part in medicine.
This was because many people did not understand the new developments or simply did not like change. Jenner discovered this when he could not explain vaccination; Pasteur’s Germ theory was challenged by the Theory of Spontaneous Generation; whilst John Snow found it difficult to prove that cholera was not caused by miasma.
springwoodgcsehistory.blogspot.co.uk/p/medicine-through-time-overview.html (Miss Webster's site)