Unit 1 History of medicine quiz

Humoral theory

• Yellow and black bile, blood, and phlegm

• The imbalance of these four properties made people sick so it was up to people to balance them out to heal

• Each humor correlated to season and color

• No scientific platform for this thinking

• Sickness was also seen as a punishment from god

• You did something bad so god unbalanced your humor

• Explains unexplained sickness

European treatments of health and sickness

• Fever = too much blood that makes you warm = bloodletting to release blood

  • Needles and leaches

• Prayer for health and apologizing for sins

• rebalance humors (need two examples)

• phlegmatic = eating citrus fruit

• making yourself vomit/purging = excess of bile

• herbal remedies

• blistering

• cupping

• opium - dulls pain

Indigenous beliefs of health and sickness

• Natives saw sickness and health as a right given to them.

• Their ideas stemed from nature and connection with the natural world

• If they fell ill it ment to them that they upset their spirits and they needed to repay them to heal

Impact of environment on colonial america

• The swamps and hot temperatures fostered sickness

  • Flys carried many of the original illnesses because the breed in swamps and swamps were very common

Examples of early illness

Fevers

Vomiting

Low energy

Phlegmatic

Imbalance of humors

Malaria - from flys - fever, chills, intense sweats,visions, flares(never constant)

How did colonist describe fever and flux and why?

• Only things they could see

  • Temp = fever

  • gastrointestinal = flux

Causes of smallpox

•  exposure though contact and respiratory, Spreads through flakes of skin

  • Came from animals like rodents and unhealthy farming practices

    • Airborne disease

Symptoms of smallpox

• little red dots around the body from rashes 

  • Filled with pathogen of smallpox/puss

• Caugh, low energy, fever, body aches, vomiting, rashes 

• fever

Outcome of smallpox

• 30% death

• Inoculation outcome - injecting someone with small amounts of smallpox to give people immunity

Smallpox impact of indigenous people

• It was spread to them by smallpox blankets

• It killed them very quickly because they had no medicine or immunity to it - 99.9% death rate 

  • It was seen by them as a punishment from the gods  

• Lead them to see that colonist were not dying so it made them think they were destin for the land - due to their beliefs 

development of a vaccine

• Introduced dead or modified form of smallpox

• Edward Jenner observed that people who had cowpox were not able to get smallpox so he injected them with cowpox

physician healer in colonial america

for the higher class, for severe illness, surgical requirement

Surgens/barber healer in colonial america

leaned through apprenticeship for lower class, amputations

Apothecaries/midwives healer in colonial america

first person called, herbs and compound drugs, daily medical care