Hermann History of Healthcare Timeline

  • Period: 4000 BCE to 3000 BCE

    Early Beginnings

  • 3900 BCE

    Disease Caused By?

    Evil Spirts
  • 3600 BCE

    Treatments For Sick?

    Tribal doctors preformed ceremonies to exorcise evil spirts.
  • 3100 BCE

    Medicines Used Today

    • Digitalis: given in pill form to treat heart conditions
    • Quinine: Comes from bark of the cinchona tree, it controls fever, muscles spasm, and helps prevent malaria
    • Belladonna and atropine: made form poisonous nightshade plant relieve muscle spasm
    • Morphine: Treats severe pain, addicting, only use when nothing else helps
  • Period: 2999 BCE to 399

    Ancient Times

  • 2900 BCE

    Ancient Egyptians

    They were superstitious and called upon the gods to heal them
    The priests are the physicians
    They used medicines to heal diseases
  • 1900 BCE

    Ancient Chinese

    These early medical pioneers learned that to treat a variety of illness and disease with stone tools which developed the practices of Chinese acupuncture.
  • 900 BCE

    Ancient Greeks

    They were the first to study the causes diseases and to determine that illnesses may have natural rather than spiritual causes
    They did not allow bodies to be dissected
    Hippocrates wrote the standard of ethics called the Oath of Hippocrates.
  • 100

    Ancient Romans

    • Disease was caused by the lack of sanitation
    • Romans were the first to organize medical care
    • Public buildings for the care of the sick were established
  • Period: 400 to 800

    Dark Age

  • 500

    Stopped the Study of Medicine Why?

    Medicine was practiced only in convents and monasteries because the church believed that life and death were in God’s hands.
  • 700

    How Do They Treat Disease

    The primary treatment was a prayer.
  • Period: 800 to 1400

    Middle Age

  • 1100

    Epidemics

    Epidemics caused millions of deaths during this period
  • 1450

    Rebirth?

    • The building of universities and medical schools for research
    • The acceptance of dissection of the body for study
    • The development of the printing press and the publishing of books, allowing greater access to the knowledge from research Changed the future of medical science
  • Period: 1501 to

    16th and 17th Centuries

  • 1515

    Leonardo De Vinci

    Studied and recorded the anatomy of the body
  • 1550

    Gabrielle Fallopius

    Discovered the Fallopian tubes of the female anatomy
  • 1563

    Bartolommeo Eustachio

    Discovered the tube leading form the ear to the throat
  • William Harvey

    He was able to describe the circulations of blood and pumping of the heart
  • Antonie Von Leeuwenhoek

    Invented the microscope
    Discovered what causes tooth decay
    The germs that cause disease were now visible
  • Apothecaries

    Pharmacies started in this time
  • Period: to

    18th Century

  • Benjamin Franklin

    He discovered bifocals, ad found that colds can be passed from person to person
  • Medical students learning

    Observed patients at bedside
    Dissected patients when they died
    More students wanted to study medicine
  • Joseph Priestley

    Discovered the element of oxygen and observed plants refresh air that has restored oxygen making respiration
  • Period: to

    19th and 20th Centuries

  • Period: to

    21st Century

  • Period: to

    Renaissance