Medicines are chemicals or compounds used to cure, halt, or prevent disease; ease symptoms; or help in the diagnosis of illnesses. Advances in medicines have enabled doctors to cure many diseases and save lives. These days, medicines come from a variety of sources.
Full Answer
What is the origin of Medicine?
Administration of a vegetable drug or remedy by mouth was accompanied by incantations, dancing, grimaces, and all the tricks of the magician. Therefore, the first doctors, or “medicine men,” were witch doctors or sorcerers. The use of charms and talismans, still prevalent in modern times, is of ancient origin.
How has medicine changed in the 20th century?
Medicine in the 20th century. The 20th century produced such a plethora of discoveries and advances that in some ways the face of medicine changed out of all recognition. In 1901 in the United Kingdom, for instance, the life expectancy at birth, a primary indicator of the effect of health care on mortality ...
What did the first doctors do?
Administration of a vegetable drug or remedy by mouth was accompanied by incantations, dancing, grimaces, and all the tricks of the magician. Therefore, the first doctors, or “medicine men,” were witch doctors or sorcerers.
What draws you to medicine?
Describing the direct impact a doctor had on your life or the life of someone close to you can be a very effective way to demonstrate what draws you to medicine. Perhaps someone close to the applicant was very ill once or died, and the experience with that person or with his or her doctors became very significant.
What is the oldest medicine?
The Sumerian clay tablet (about 2100 BC) is considered to be the world's oldest recorded list of medical prescriptions. It is believed by some scholars that the opium poppy is referred to on the tablet. Some objects from the ancient Greek Minoan culture may also suggest the knowledge of the poppy.
Where did medicine come from?
Many of the medicines developed in the last century were derived from naturally occurring molecules (natural products) found in sources including plants, bacteria, and fungi; as the discovery of these drugs slowed, man-made molecules have not filled the deficit.
What are 4 main reasons medicines are used for?
The goals of medicine encompass the relief of pain and suffering, the promotion of health and the prevention of disease, the forestalling of death and the promoting of a peaceful death, and the cure of disease when possible and the care of those who can not be cured.
Who made medicine first?
Abstract. Hippocrates is considered to be the father of modern medicine because in his books, which are more than 70. He described in a scientific manner, many diseases and their treatment after detailed observation. He lived about 2400 years ago.
Why is medicine so important?
The benefits of medicines are the helpful effects you get when you use them, such as lowering blood pressure, curing infection, or relieving pain. The risks of medicines are the chances that something unwanted or unexpected could happen to you when you use them.
When was medicine invented?
The first known mention of the practice of medicine is from the Old Kingdom of Ancient Egypt, dating back to about 2600 BC.
What is the focus of medicine?
Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health.
How do medicines work in the body?
After a medicine has been distributed throughout the body and has done its job, the drug is broken down, or metabolized, the M in ADME. Everything that enters the bloodstream-whether swallowed, injected, inhaled or absorbed through the skin-is carried to the body's chemical processing plant, the liver.
How did doctors start?
Professional societies began regulating medical practice by examining and licensing practitioners as early as 1760. By the early 1800s, the medical societies were in charge of establishing regulations, standards of practice, and certification of doctors.
Who invented hospital?
The earliest general hospital was built in 805 AD in Baghdad by Harun Al-Rashid.
Who is the first doctor in the world?
The first physician to emerge is Imhotep, chief minister to King Djoser in the 3rd millennium bce, who designed one of the earliest pyramids, the Step Pyramid at Ṣaqqārah, and who was later regarded as the Egyptian god of medicine and identified with the Greek god Asclepius.
What is the history of medicine?
History of medicine, the development of the prevention and treatment of disease from prehistoric and ancient times to the 21st century. Edward Jenner vaccinating his child against smallpox; coloured engraving.
Where did the search for information on ancient medicine lead?
The search for information on ancient medicine leads naturally from the papyri of Egypt to Hebrew literature. Though the Bible contains little on the medical practices of ancient Israel, it is a mine of information on social and personal hygiene. The Jews were indeed pioneers in matters of public health.
What diseases did mummies suffer?
The preservation of mummies has, however, revealed some of the diseases suffered at that time, including arthritis, tuberculosis of the bone, gout, tooth decay, bladder stones, and gallstones ; there is evidence too of the parasitic disease schistosomiasis , which remains a scourge still.
What is the most ancient aspect of healing?
The use of charms and talismans, still prevalent in modern times, is of ancient origin. Apart from the treatment of wounds and broken bones, the folklore of medicine is probably the most ancient aspect of the art of healing, for primitive physicians showed their wisdom by treating the whole person, soul as well as body.
What were the first doctors?
Therefore, the first doctors, or “medicine men,” were witch doctors or sorcerers.
What were the common maladies of the ancient world?
Common maladies, such as colds or constipation, were accepted as part of existence and dealt with by means of such herbal remedies as were available. Serious and disabling diseases, however, were placed in a very different category. These were of supernatural origin.
Why was divination practiced?
Divination, from the inspection of the liver of a sacrificed animal, was widely practiced to foretell the course of a disease. Little else is known regarding Babylonian medicine, and the name of not a single physician has survived. When the medicine of ancient Egypt is examined, the picture becomes clearer.
What was Germany's medical history?
Germany was well to the forefront in medical progress. The scientific approach to medicine had been developed there long before it spread to other countries, and postgraduates flocked to German medical schools from all over the world. The opening decade of the 20th century has been well described as the golden age of German medicine. Outstanding among its leaders was Paul Ehrlich.
Who was the scientist who discovered the effects of chemical substances on disease organisms?
He experimented with the effects of various chemical substances on disease organisms. In 1910, with his colleague Sahachiro Hata, he conducted tests on arsphenamine, once sold under the commercial name Salvarsan.
Why was Fleming unable to carry his work to fruition?
In spite of his conviction that penicillin was a potent antibacterial agent, Fleming was unable to carry his work to fruition, mainly because the techniques to enable its isolation in sufficient quantities or in a sufficiently pure form to allow its use on patients had not been developed.
What was the search for treatments for infectious diseases?
The search for treatments was aimed at both vaccines and chemical remedies.
What diseases were discovered in the 20th century?
Infectious diseases and chemotherapy. In the 20th century, ongoing research concentrated on the nature of infectious diseases and their means of transmission. Increasing numbers of pathogenic organisms were discovered and classified. Some, such as the rickettsias, which cause diseases like typhus, are smaller than bacteria; some are larger, ...
When did Fleming discover the inhibitory action of a stray mold on a plate culture of
A dramatic episode in medical history occurred in 1928, when Alexander Fleming noticed the inhibitory action of a stray mold on a plate culture of staphylococcus bacteria in his laboratory at St. Mary’s Hospital, London.
Who discovered streptomycin?
However, in 1944 Selman Waksman, Albert Schatz, and Elizabeth Bugie announced the discovery of streptomycin from cultures of a soil organism, Streptomyces griseus, and stated that it was active against M. tuberculosis. Subsequent clinical trials amply confirmed this claim.
Mercury: drops of silver in each hand
Syphilis has been treated with many different methods through the years, few of which worked. Left untreated, or ineffectively treated, a person suffering from syphilis will develop ulcers, fever, and muscle pains. The ulcers turn to pocks and sores all over the body, including in the throat and mouth.
Opium: the poppy of sleep and death
Opium was used by the ancient Egyptians and Romans as a sleeping aid, according to History Extra. Roman doctor Galen recommended a particular shop to purchase an opium-based drink called cretic wine to help with sleep. But the risk of opium was known even back in ancient times. The Greek physician Dioscorides warned against overdosing.
Tobacco: panacea plant of the Americas
When Christopher Columbus traveled to the Americas, he found Native Americans using tobacco to heal a number of ailments, including colds and fevers, according to an article in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine.
Excrement: to ward off spirits and avoid pregnancy
The ancient Egyptians used animal excrement to ward off spirits, for its health properties, and for contraception, according to Medical Daily. Though some animal dung contains antibiotic substances, it can also cause tetanus and other infections. Excrement in general has a tendency to spread disease.
Leeches and bloodletting: balancing the body in the wrong way
Bloodletting has been used throughout history for thousands of years. For the Greeks, it was meant to balance the body's humors. Hippocrates believed the body was made up of four humors: blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm, and that an imbalance among them caused illness.
Cocaine: an addictive anesthesia
Cocaine (via coca leaves) was used by the Incas as a panacea. The Italian traveler Amerigo Vespucci wrote of Indigenous people using the plant in his memoirs (via Klin Oczna ). The Incas chewed coca leaves to cure sadness, hunger, and tiredness.
Sulfur: fumigating the wandering womb
In ancient Greece, people believed that the womb was a separate entity that would move on its own around the body when a woman went too long without sexual activity. It was also thought that the womb had an inherent desire to produce children, according to Medical Independent.
Who is the father of medicine?
For example, many of the modern medical accomplishments of Ancient Greeks and other European men happened by “discovering” the knowledge of others. Hippocrates, who’s still quoted as the Father of Medicine, likely studied the writings of the Egyptian physician Imhotep, who academics now consider the true father of medicine.
Do indigenous people still revere the natural world?
And this is also true today: Indigenous people worldwide still revere much of the natural world as sacred, and safeguard the plant spirits within — as is still done today in the sacred groves of Africa. For much of humankind, possessing plant knowledge, or having access to a person who did, made the difference between life and death.
Did Africans lose the art of herbal medicine?
The art of herbal medicine isn’t completely lost. Our ancestors went to great lengths to retain their knowledge of medicinal and edible plants so that we may continue to use them. Enslaved Africans risked their very safety to smuggle plants of cultural, spiritual, and medical importance during the Middle Passage.
What is cocaine used for?
Marketed as a treatment for toothaches, depression, sinusitis, lethargy, alcoholism, and impotence, cocaine was soon being sold as a tonic, lozenge, powder and even used in cigarettes. It even appeared in Sears Roebuck catalogues.
Who discovered cocaine as a topical anesthetic?
Pharmaceutical companies loved this new, fast-acting and relatively-inexpensive stimulant. In 1884, an Austrian ophthalmologist, Carol Koller , discovered that a few drops of cocaine solution put on a patient’s cornea acted as a topical anesthetic.
How many cocaine addicts were there in 1902?
By 1902, there were an estimated 200,000 cocaine addicts in the U.S. alone. In 1914, the Harrison Narcotic Act outlawed the production, importation, and distribution of cocaine. 3.
When did the FDA approve fen-phen?
In April 1996 , after a contentious debate, the FDA agreed to approve the drug, pending a one-year trial. Almost immediately, reports of grave side effects started pouring in. That July, the Mayo Clinic said that 24 women taking fen-phen had developed serious heart valve abnormalities.
Who invented the steam powered medical instrument?
In an effort to spare the doctors this work, one ingenious practitioner named Dr. Joseph Mortimer Granville created a steam-powered, “electromechanical medical instrument.”.
Does cocaine cause eye surgery?
It made the eye immobile and de-sensitized to pain, and caused less bleeding at the site of incision—making eye surgery much less risky. News of this discovery spread, and soon cocaine was being used in both eye and sinus surgeries.
