Key Vocabulary: History of Medicine

Flashcards covering key vocabulary from lecture notes on the history of medicine and public health.

Inoculation

Spreading matter from a smallpox scab onto an open cut on a healthy person’s skin, giving them a mild dose of the disease.

Vaccination

A method of making people immune from a deadly infectious disease using a weakened form. (after the Latin word vacca - cow).

Quarantine

Isolation of a person who may be carrying an infectious disease.

Miasma

The ‘bad air’ they believed carried disease.

Flagellant

A person who whips himself as part of a religious penance.

Alchemy

A type of chemistry in the medieval era that aimed to find a way to change ordinary metals into gold and a medicine to cure any disease.

Mysticism

The belief that there is a hidden meaning to life.

Elixir

A liquid with magical power that would prolong life indefinitely.

Bacteriology

The study of bacteria and how to deal with them.

Antibody

A natural defence mechanism of the body against germs.

Dynion Hysbys

Welsh wise men believed to have the power to break spells and undo evils spread by witches.