Reed Health History Timeline

  • Period: 4000 BCE to 3000 BCE

    Early Beginings

  • 3900 BCE

    Disease Caused By?

    Supernatural Spirits
  • 3600 BCE

    Treatments for the Sick

    They performed ceremonies to exorcise the evil spirits. They also sometimes removed a part of the cranium and used herbs and plants.
  • 3100 BCE

    Medicines Still Used Today

    Foxglove plant in a pill form or through an injection. Quinine controls fevers, relieves muscle spasms, and helps prevent malaria.
  • Period: 2999 BCE to 399

    Ancient Times

  • 2900 BCE

    Ancient Egyptian’s

    They were the earliest people to keep accurate health records. Early Egyptians were priests who acted as physicians.
  • 1900 BCE

    Ancient Chinese

    They were first to use primitive acupuncture therapies. They learned to treat diseases and illnesses with stone tools.
  • 900 BCE

    Ancient Greeks

    Medicine was considered an art not just a profession. They housed sacred temples of healing.
  • 100

    Ancient Romans

    Ancient Romans
    The Roman’s were the first to organize medical care. They had rooms in their houses for the ill. The start of hospitals started here. The Roman physicians wore a death mask. A death mask had spices in the beak which the Roman’s thought protected them from infection and bad odors.
  • Period: 400 to 300

    The Dark Age

  • 500

    Stopped the Study of Medicine, Why?

    Church’s believed that life and death were in God’s hands. Therefore, they thought the primary treatment was prayer.
  • 700

    How do they Treat Disease?

    Medications which were mostly made of herbal mixtures. They also thought that prayer was the main treatment.
  • Period: 800 to 1400

    Middle Age

  • 1100

    Epidemics

    Epidemics
    They created vaccines to stop all of these epidemics. The epidemics causes millions of deaths after deaths during this time.
  • Period: 1350 to

    Renaissance

  • 1450

    Rebirth

    They built universities and medical schools for research. The acceptance of dissection of the body for study was used. The printing press was developed.
  • Period: 1501 to

    16th and 17th Century

  • 1515

    Leonardo Da Vinci

    Leonardo Da Vinci
    Leonardo Da Vinci studied and recorded the anatomy of the body.
  • 1550

    Gabriele Fallopius

    Gabriele Fallopius discovered the fallopian tubes of the female anatomy. Hence the last name.
  • 1563

    Bartolommeo Eustachio

    He discovered the tube that goes from the ear to the throat. It’s called the Eustachian tube, coming from his last name.
  • William Harvey

    He described the circulation of blood and the heart pumping first. He was the one who knew it first.
  • Antonie von Leeuwenhoek

    He invented the microscope, and established that there is life smaller than the eye can see.
  • Apothecaries

    These were early pharmacies. In medieval England they engaged in flourishing trade in drugs and spices from the East.
  • Period: to

    18th Century

  • Benjamin Franklin

    Benjamin Franklin
    He discovered bifocals, and he found that colds can be spread from person to person.
  • Medical Students Learning

    The students learning led to a better understanding of the causes of death and illness. Many more students started studying medicine.
  • Joseph Preistly

    He discovered the element oxygen. He also found out plants refresh air that has lost its oxygen. Then found it was usable for respiration.
  • Edward Jenner

    He discovered the method of vaccination for a disease called smallpox. He saved many lives by discovering this.
  • René Laënnec

    She invented the stethoscope. It was made out of wood.
  • Period: to

    19th and 20th Century

  • Ignaz Semmelweis

    He found the cause for the childhood fever. He discovered that handwashing and cleanliness became practice to everyone.
  • Florence Nightingale

    Florence Nightingale
    She was the founder of modern nursing.
  • Louis Pasteur

    He is the founder of microbiology. He was the one to discover microorganisms. He also discovered that heating milk prevented the growth of all bacteria! Then, he crested the vaccine for rabies in 1885.
  • Dmitri Ivanovski

    He discovered viruses. For example, poliomyelitis, chicken pox, rabies, German measles, measles, mumps, herpes zoster, and influenza.
  • Joseph Lister

    Joseph Lister
    He discovered using carbolic acid on wounds to kill germs that cause infection. This is called antiseptic. And he was the first one to use it.
  • Ernst von Bergmann

    He developed aspesis. He discovered a method to keep areas germ free. For example, surgery.
  • Robert Koch

    He discovered disease causing organisms. He introduced the importance of cleanliness to prevent diseases spreading all over.
  • Paul Ehrilch

    He discovered the effect of medicine on all sicknesses.
  • Wilhelm Roentgen

    He discovered x-rays.
  • Anesthesia

    Anesthesia
    Physicians used to choked patients to make them unconscious for surgery to stop all pain. But, many of those patients died from shock and pain. During the 19th and 20th centuries ether, nitrous oxide, and chloroform were discovered. All of these drugs make people fall into a deep sleep so they feel no pain during surgery whatsoever.
  • Sir Alexander Fleming

    He discovered penicillin. It was one of the most important discoveries of the 20th century!
  • Sigmund Freud

    He discovered the unconscious and conscious parts of the brain. He found out that the mind and body work together hence consciousness and unconsciousness.
  • Gerhard Domagk

    He discovered the first compounds in medications that were effective in killing all bacteria.
  • Jonas Salk

    He discovered the vaccine for a deadly poliovirus. The virus would cause immunity to poliomyelitis.
  • Albert Sabin

    Albert Sabin
    He discovered the live poliovirus vaccine. It is much more effective.
  • Francis Crick and James Watson

    They discovered the molecular form of DNA. Based on the double helix, their model explained how DNA shows our hereditary information coded within it.
  • Christian Barnard

    He performed the first successful heart transplant ever!
  • Ben Carson

    He separates Siamese twins and continues performing hemispherectomies.
  • Period: to

    The 21st Century

  • HPV Vaccine

    The HPV vaccine was introduced in 2006 for all Americans to access. This has saved so many lives.
  • Liquid biopsies

    Liquid biopsies
    A test from a sample of blood, urine, or even stool sample to search for cancer cells from a tumor or small pieces of DNA and RNA.
  • Pacemakers connecting to Phones

    If you use your phone, there is a higher rate of success compared with the normal and manual pacemaker.
  • Pig Kidney Transplant to Human

    Scientists genetically modified pigs organs to be more compatible to human organs. And then, the surgery begins. This could be a change in the surgical process in the 21st century.
  • Heart Valves that Grow

    Heart Valves that Grow
    This approach is possible! This will let people have long lasting healthy lives afterwards!