Disease and Society Practice Flashcards

A comprehensive set of vocabulary flashcards covering the history of medicine from Paleolithic hunter-gatherers to the advancements of the Renaissance.

Paleolithic humans

Hunter-gatherers who lived in small, nomadic groups with low population density and limited sustained disease transmission.

Shaman

A medicine man or woman serving as an intermediary between the natural and spiritual worlds, using rituals and psychoactive plants.

Trepanation

A prehistoric surgical practice involving making a hole in the skull for medical or spiritual reasons.

Neolithic Revolution

The transition to agricultural societies involving the cultivation of cereal crops like wheat, barley, rice, maize, and millet.

Phytates

Compounds found in cereals that inhibited iron absorption in early agricultural societies.

Dental caries

Increased tooth decay in agricultural populations caused by dental microwear from grinding stones, tooth crowding, and increased carbohydrates.

Zoonotic diseases

Diseases that emerged from close human-animal contact following the domestication of animals.

Ötzi the Iceman

The oldest known naturally preserved human mummy, dating to the Copper Age ($~3300 BCE$), discovered in the Ötztal Alps in September $1991$.

Beau’s lines

Distinct lines found in fingernails (three were found on Ötzi) that indicate episodes of systemic stress.

Birch polypore

A fungus containing polyporenic acid effective against whipworm, carried by Ötzi as a possible treatment.

Sekhmet

The Egyptian goddess of plague and disease as well as healing and medicine; patron of physicians.

Imhotep

The first physician named in written history.

Edwin Smith Papyrus

An ancient Egyptian surgery textbook/manual dating to ~$1600 BCE$ containing anatomical observations and injury treatments.

Ebers Papyrus

An ancient Egyptian medical text from ~$1550 BCE$ comprising magic remedies, incantations, and the use of medicinal foods.

Asclepius

The Greek god of medicine who carried a staff with a single snake coiled around it.

Rod of Asclepius

A staff with a single snake, used as a modern-day symbol of medical practice.

Caduceus

The symbol of Hermes, patron of commerce, featuring two snakes and wings; often mistakenly used as a medical symbol in the United States.

Temple Sleep

A practice in the Asclepieion where patients slept to receive healing dreams prescribed by Asclepius or his children.

Hippocrates

An ancient Greek figure ($c. 460 – 377 B.C.E.$) who proposed that disease has natural causes rather than divine or magical origins.

Humoral theory

A medical theory where disease results from an imbalance of four humors: blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile.

Eukrasia

The state of having a perfect balance of the four humors.

Dyskrasia

An imbalance of the four humors resulting in disease.

Galen

A prolific physician born in $129 C.E.$ who expanded on humoral theory and described human anatomy based on animal dissections.

Barber-surgeons

Apprenticeship-trained practitioners who performed surgeries, bloodletting, and tooth extractions during the Middle Ages.

Andreas Vesalius

A Flemish anatomist who challenged Galen's authority by conducting human dissections and publishing "De Humani Corporis Fabrica" in $1543$.