Our World In Medicine

Our World In Medicine


     One of the most important factors about people's lives is the

information of, the use of, and the growing knowledge of medicine.  Medicine is

a science that nations all over the world use.  It is a science because it is

based on knowledge gained through careful study and experimentation.  Medicine

is also an art form because it depends on how skillfully doctors and other

medical workers apply their knowledge when dealing with patients.1

     Medicine is one of the most respected professions.  The two important

goals of medicine are to save lives and to relieve suffering, which is why it is

so respected.  But the medical field is not open to anyone who wants to help.

It takes many long years of college and medical school to get even a license to

work with medicine.2   While some doctors are more important than others, almost

all of them are on call twenty - four hour a day, seven days a week.  Because

they have to apply themselves to their job at all times, they are payed at very

good wages.

     Human beings have been suffering from disease since they first appeared

on the earth about two and one -half million years ago.  Throughout most of this

time, they knew little about how the human body works or what causes disease.

But medicine has gone through many stages throughout history.

     In prehistoric times, people believed that angry gods or evil spirits

caused disease.  To cure the sick, the gods had to be pacified or the evil

spirits driven from the body.  In time, this task became the job of the first

"physicians".3   The first - known surgical treatment was an operation called

trephining.  Trephining involved use of a stone instrument to cut a hole in a

patient's skull.  Scientists have found fossils of such skulls that date back as

far as 10,000 years.

     Prehistoric people probably also discovered that many plants can be used

as drugs.  For example, the use of willow bark to relieve pain probably dates

back thousands of years.4   Today, scientists know that willow bark contains the

important ingredients that is included in making aspirin.

     In the Middle East, the Egyptians began making important medical

progress.  Around 2500 B.C., Egyptian physicians began to specialize.  Some

physicians treated only diseases of the eyes or teeth.  Others specialized in

internal diseases.  Egyptian surgeons produced a textbook that told how to treat

dislocated or fractured bones and as well as tumors, ulcers, and wounds.5

     The civilization of ancient Greece was at its peak during the 400's B.C.

Throughout this period, sick people flocked to temples dedicated to the Greek

god of healing, Asclepius, seeking magical cures.6  But at the same time, the

great Greek physician Hippocrates began showing that disease has only natural

causes.  He thus became the first physician known to consider medicine a science

and art separate from the practice of religion.  The Hippocratic oath, an

expression of early medical ethics, reflects Hippocrates' high ideals.7

     The Greek physician Galen made the most important contributions to

medicine in Roman times.  Galen performed experiments on animals and used his

findings to develop the first medical theories based on scientific experiments.

For this reason, he is considered the founder of experimental medicine.  But

because his knowledge of anatomy was based on animal experiments, Galen

developed many false notions about how the human body works.8

     During the Middle Ages, which lasted from the A.D. 400's to the 1500's,

the Muslim Empire of Southwest and Central Asia contributed greatly to medicine.

Rhazes, a Persian - born physician of the late 800's and early 900's, wrote the

first accurate descriptions of measles and smallpox.  Avicenna, an Arab

physician of the late 900's and early 1000's, produced a medical encyclopedia

called Canon of Medicine.  I
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