Humanities and Medicine

Humanities and Medicine

1.0 Approach

My approach to this paper is to provide a fundamental historical overview of medicine leading up to the time period of the 19th century. I will then further discuss critical contributors to the development and knowledge basis of human health care.

1.1 Overview Medicinal History:

Medical information blossomed into widespread knowledge during the time of the Renaissance. The history of modern medicine is widely associated with Hippocrates, the “father of Western Medicine” who  also invented the term Hippocratic Oath for Physicians which we still use today. Hippocrates was profound in the history of medicine since he was the first to describe many diseases and medical conditions.  He is famous in the world of medicine being that he was the first to recognize that disease was caused naturally as opposed to a superstition such as upsetting the gods. Therefore, he truly separated the church from medicine. He spent his years proving that disease was not only linked to but directly caused from environmental factors, living habits, and diets.

For the first time in the world of medicine, diseases were linked to a physicality rather than a superstition. These physical attributes could be observed and measured. Concurrently, the popular thinking of science based reasoning was flourishing throughout Europe during this time period. “The scientific method is an ongoing process, which usually begins with observations about the natural world” (Wiki). This way of thinking built on found observations in order to produce theory, shaped that way that physicians approached treatment. Physicians eventually stopped practicing based on superstition and alchemy, and started to develop cures and more advanced surgical procedures. Essentially, this lead to a profound movement to attain more knowledge based on scientific findings.

The first medical school, the Schola Medica Salernitana, was opened at Salerno in Southern Italy. Because so many people came from all over the world to Salerno, the city soon was named the Hippocratic City due to its international influences. But most notably up until this time there were no dissections or clinical work done.

 Although Hippocrates was profound in his discoveries and theories proving that disease was not caused by the god, he lacked the knowledge and practice in prescribing treatments for his diagnosis. Hippocrates practiced Humorism, which is a system of medicine based on the knowledge foundation that the human body and how one feels is directly affected by the balance of the four distinct bodily fluids, known as humors ( see fig 1).  Humorism is a very holistic approach to medicine, linking physical sickness  to humor balance and seasonal temperaments.  “In essence the theory attributed sickness to an imbalance or corruption of the four basic humors, blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile” (Duffy).