The History of Medicine in 100 Facts

Caroline Rance

• Publisher: Amberley Publishing
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9781445650043
• Edition: 0
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

The history of medicine is a vast subject, encompassing the whole of humanity in every region of the globe. For millennia, our ancestors have sought to combat disease, relieve pain and postpone the Grim Reaper's inevitable victory, doing so with a fortitude and humour that makes their experiences resonate with us today. In this book packed full of facts from medicine's long and often shocking past, Caroline Rance gives concise introductions to some of the more well-known (and not-so-well-known) episodes, dispelling a few myths and celebrating a few neglected figures along the way.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Introduction
• 1. This Is the Story of Medicine … Except It Isn’t
• 2. Prehistoric People Needed Surgery Like a Hole in the Head
• 3. Where There Are People, There Are Parasites
• 4. Stone Age Dentists Drilled Out Decay
• 5. Copper Age People Might (or Might Not) Have Used Tattoos for Healing
• 6. Some of the Earliest Known Doctors Were Women
• 7. Ancient Egyptian Medical Specialists Included the ‘Herdsman of the Anus’
• 8. Papyri Reveal the Earliest Written Surgical Cases
• 9. Prosthetics Helped People Walk (Like an Egyptian)
• 10. Ancient Mesopotamian Medicine Treated Body and Soul
• 11. Sight-Saving Surgery Was Possible Six Centuries BCE
• 12. Hippocrates Rejected Supernatural Theories of Disease
• 13. The Four Humours Began a 2,000-Year Reign over European Medicine
• 14. Diocles Extracted Barbed Arrows with a Spoon
• 15. The Oldest Known Chinese Medical Book Is Still in Use Today
• 16. A Gentleman Physician Introduced Medical Latin
• 17. Dioscorides Catalogued the Drugs of the Roman Empire
• 18. Galen Influenced Medicine for a Millennium …
• 19. … But Al-Razi Had Doubts about Him
• 20. Translation Rescued Ancient Works from Oblivion
• 21. Anglo-Saxon Medicine Involved Leeches (Who Didn’t Suck Blood)
• 22. Ibn Sina Brought Together All the Medical Knowledge of His Time
• 23. Maimonides Could Help You Thwart Assassins
• 24. Ibn Al-Nafis Discovered the Pulmonary Circulation
• 25. The Trotula Gynaecological Texts Were Not Written by Trotula
• 26. Monks Began to See Clearly
• 27. Theriac Cured Everything
• 28. East and West Met at Monte Cassino
• 29. A Little Book Taught the Art of Medicine
• 30. Urine for a Treat with Medieval Doctors
• 31. Women Practised Medicine in Spite of Exclusion
• 32. The Great Pestilence Revealed Ugly Truths about Human Nature
• 33. An Alarming Disease Broke Out in England … and Then Disappeared
• 34. Queen Isabella Sent Ambulances to War
• 35. Mercury Was the Top Treatment for Syphilis for over 400 Years
• 36. The Dose Made the Poison
• 37. China’s Materia Medica Contained Nearly 1,900 Drugs
• 38. A ‘Tree of Life’ Cured Scurvy
• 39. Ambroise Paré Turned His Back on Boiling Oil
• 40. Mummy Knew Best
• 41. Vesalius Revolutionised the Study of Anatomy
• 42. Miasma Theory Attributed Disease to Poisonous Air
• 43. Seeds Could Be the Culprit Too
• 44. Ideas about Circulation Continued to Circulate
• 45. The First Condoms Were Worn after the Event
• 46. Plastic Surgeons Offered New Noses for Old
• 47. A Quechua Medicine Tackled Malaria
• 48. The Iconic Plague Doctor Costume Protected Those Dealing with Pestilence
• 49. The Chamberlen Family Was Good at Keeping Secrets
• 50. Midwives Protested Against Male Usurpers
• 51. The Microscope Revealed a Whole New World of Minuscule Life
• 52. The First Patent Medicines Introduced a New Treatment Option
• 53. Smallpox Inoculation Reached England via Constantinople
• 54. … And Arrived in America from Africa …
• 55. … And Then Vaccination Became Possible
• 56. Germany’s First Female MD Championed Women’s Education
• 57. A Self-Help Manual Taught That Cleanliness Was Key
• 58. Bloodletting Was a Perennial Favourite
• 59. Tractors Demonstrated the Placebo Effect
• 60. General Anaesthesia Allayed the Pain of Cancer Surgery
• 61. Smoking Was Good for You
• 62. A Mutineer Led Improvements in Convict Health
• 63. A Paper Tube Became a Window to the Human Body
• 64. Bodysnatchers Helped Students Learn Anatomy
• 65. Leeches Were All the Rage
• 66. Elizabeth Fry Laid the Foundations for Nursing Reform
• 67. The Early Days of Inhalational Anaesthesia Were Hilarious … and Tragic
• 68. Chloroform Helped Her Majesty Give Birth
• 69. Opium Had Its Teething Troubles
• 70. Semmelweis Encouraged Reluctant Doctors to Wash Their Hands
• 71. Nightingale Was Good at Numbers as Well as Nursing
• 72. Wine Helped Confirm Germ Theory
• 73. The First African American Woman Doctor Graduated in 1864
• 74. Antiseptics Made Surgery Safer
• 75. The Edinburgh Seven Challenged Misogyny in Medicine
• 76. Ugandan Surgeons Developed Life-Saving Caesarean Operations
• 77. Certain Bacteria Caused Certain Diseases
• 78. The Tapeworm Man Could Get Rid of Your Unwelcome Passengers
• 79. The Snake Oil of the American West Was Really Made from Snakes … Some of the Time
• 80. A Hospital Romance Brought Rubber Gloves into the Operating Theatre
• 81. Plague Returned (Though It Never Really Went Away)
• 82. X-rays Revealed the Body’s Secrets
• 83. Radium Brought Hope to Cancer Patients
• 84. Quackbusters Tried to Crack Down on Medical Fraud …
• 85. … But That Didn’t Include Tapeworm Diet Pills
• 86. Insulin Transformed the Outlook for People with Diabetes
• 87. The Army Battled Against the Common Cold
• 88. The Frontier Nursing Service Took Primary Care to Rural Communities
• 89. Penicillin Drifted in by Chance …
• 90. … But It Took a Lot of People to Make a Lot of It
• 91. Twentieth-Century Conditions Were Ripe for Polio Outbreaks
• 92. The US Public Health Service Carried Out an Infamously Unethical Study
• 93. The Pioneer of Blood Banks Fought Racial Discrimination
• 94. Smoking Was No Longer Good for You
• 95. Organ Transplants Extended Patients’ Lives
• 96. The Building Blocks of Life Revealed the Past, Present and Future
• 97. A Devastating New Virus Was Identified in 1983
• 98. The Last Naturally Occurring Case of Smallpox Happened in 1977 …
• 99. … And Its Survivor Worked to Eradicate Polio
• 100. No Action Today Means No Cure Tomorrow