OCR History A Medicine Through Time

Prehistoric

Prehistoric methods of treating illness

• Mainly common sense
• Wooden splints for broken bones
• Mud to stop bones from moving
• Herbs grew near where they lived
• Willow used as a painkiller
• If no improvement, supernatural methods used as loss of spirit believed to be a cause of illness
• Supernatural cures included chanting to make a bad spirit leave the body
• Last resort, trephining, involving cutting open skull to let bad spirits out

Egyptian

Main features of Egyptian medicine

• Common sense
• Herbal remedies eg: honey as an antiseptic
• Supernatural cures, would go to temples to be healed or make offerings for Gods
• Believed Gods sent epidemics or looked after pregnant women
• Channel theory, body like the River Nile and illness was caused by blocked channels
• Learnt about the anatomy through embalming to both prepare bodies for the afterlife and prevent rotting

How Egyptians tried to stay healthy

• Used charms to protect from evil spiritis
• Purged themselves if ill to unblock channels
• Kept themselves clean - shaven bodies, regularly washed eating and drinking utensils
• Took precautions such as using toilets or sleeping under mosquito nets

How factors outside of medicine help Egyptians make medicinal progress

• Egypt one of the first places where not everyone needed to hunt to sruvive, so other people could be employed as priests or doctors to look after the sick
• Religion important to medicine - many doctors were also priests
• Embalming bodies helped to find out…