Victorian Era Medicine

Practitioners with a lack of formal education did medical care in the 17th century. Many women and laypeople in that time had lots of expertise in herbal medicines and folk antidotes to cure colonists. The first curer people would turn to if they were sick would be a neighbor or a family member. However, there was a new type of physician in the 18th century. This was usually a young man from a wealthy family who went to an elite university who didn 't see himself as a doctor, but more as a scientist. The new physicians learned anatomy through dissection, assisted researchers, and helped with medical experiments. They also observed surgical procedures, and sat through lectures about new advances in the department of medical science. Alongside the scientists, there were also surgeons. The military was where many surgeons

Until the Flexner Report of 1910, requirements for admission to medical schools were rudimentary at best. Even the two prestigious schools in Philadelphia, the University of Pennsylvania and Jefferson Medical College, required only “one year of college work, in which, however, conditions have been very freely allowed.” and “a high school education or its equivalent,” respectively. Students at the University of Pennsylvania in the 1840s and 1850s were taught that science is based on experience and making a “judgment” as to the correct answer to a question or a problem. Civil War Surgeons’ medical education was severely limited by the concept that disease was caused by “bad air” (Dorwart, Bonnie Brice).

After the discovery of substances such as, chloroform, ether,and nitrous oxide; surgeons could become increasingly more methodical and invasive. These substances rendered the patient unconscious, this allowed surgeons take their time and not rush. The discovery of these substances also created new job specialties for nurses. Nurses began to give anesthesia to the soldiers on the battlefield in the Civil War, and although surgery as a medical practice was starting to take shape in the gilded age, its use of crude methods reveal how far we have come and why this era was just the beginning for today’s progress. Medicine as a whole has changed drastically from the Gilded Age and the Roaring Twenties.

The logic and principles of medieval medicine shaped those of Modern medicine. Never was there a more efficient method perfected, so much that it remained through history through so many hundreds of years. Today’s concepts of diagnosis, relationships with the church, anatomy, surgery, hospitals and training, and public health were established in the Middle Ages.

Medieval medicine was rooted in Ancient Greek practices. In 65 A.D., a Greek writer, Discorides, wrote a book, Material Medica. The book is about medical use of over five-hundred different plants. The book is translated into Hebrew and Arabic. Doctors in the Early Modern Era knew very little, and they used plants as the most important care and/or treatment. Due to unsanitary places and tools, many different diseases spread around Europe. Life was challenging during the Early Modern Era because of many diseases(Alchin). During the 1500s- 1600s, diseases overtook many people because doctors knew little, medicine was unknown, and there were many causes.

At this time there was no physician-patient relationship, this being due to the fact that physicians were there to treat the body and the general view was that patients were unable to provide accurate evidence without “feelings and emotions” getting in the way. This Era at the bottom line was about facts, evidence and physical direct ailments. The nursing profession was just starting to be developed in this Era. The “nurses” of this time were family members, nuns, priests, neighbors who were all untrained. The start of some of the founding nurses were seen such as Florence Nightingale. She started to look at sanitary conditions and nutrition, some might say she was the original nurse. Her contribution the start of nursing is very significant. She trained some of the first nurses during the Crimean War and with her training she was able to statistically show how sanitary conditions, cleanliness and nutrition were able to significantly decrease the death rate of Crimean soldiers. In Era I physicians really only took care of one part of the “human”, because as humans we are a composition of the physical, mental and soul. Those three parts are what give us humanity and higher thinking. So Era I does not create a fully encompassing view of medicine.

In 190, the AMA (American Medical Association). During the early years, membership in this organization, grew to an outstanding number of 8000 physicians in 1900 to 70,000 in 1910 (PBS.org Healthcare crisis timeline). These years would become known as the start of “organized medicine” (PBS.org)

As progress was made in medicine gradually with new medical technologies which could only be used in the hospitals, doctors started charging more, which was unaffordable for most people, with time, all this started to change as the industrialization of the American economy caused families and people to start relying on services from doctors and the

I unfortunately didn’t have enough time to of course to completely solidify my findings. But one thing that is for sure is that the Healthcare field grew in a short amount of time, there was so much intelligence back then that we only think of bone saw but in reality they had things that seemed to defy what should have been normal at the time, and this of course is just a start of my findings. For the research part on woman I found that surprisingly Florence Nightingale wasn’t technically the first Nurse. There had been a pioneer in England that you’ll find in one of my sources listed in the bibliography that isn’t necessarily relevant to make the point. Next I found that woman seemed to pioneer it as a means for a platform to build in a way the woman’s right moment and just because they wanted to help out. Especially when wars broke out there had been fewer men at home and more men in the Homefront. In total I believe that this topic could swing to a different topic in multiple ways such as Healthcare through the ages, the war, how men became nurses, the process of nursing school back then, and as you can see this also goes on. My one un-answered question is how they cured someone back then. There’s mostly home cures but no solid book from a professional that could tell me what exactly they did back then. Overall I believe I’ve covered this

“The belief about the causes of illness were based on the ancient teaching of Aristotle and Hippocrates” ( Elizabethan Medicine and Illness). “Physician, Surgeons, and Barbers were the three categories for medical professions” (Foster Par. 2) Physicians would dose themselves in vinegar and chew. Elizabethan Physicians were very wealthy. “ By the end of the major wave of the plague at the beginning of the 15th century, most of the physicians and many surgeons had died” (Foster Par. 3).

Elizabethan medicine was administered by a wide variety of doctors. An individual's doctor depended on his or her class and whether they could pay the fee. The usual course a majority of people took

The improvement of medicine over the course of the human successes gave great convenience to the people of today. Science has cured and prevented many illnesses from occurring and is on its way to cure some of the most dreadful and harmful illnesses. As the world modernizes due to the industrialization, so does the ways of medicine. Some cures are approached by chance, some, through intense, scientific measures.

By the fifth century B.C., Egyptian doctors had their own specialization. Most of the doctors were men and, within their ranks, there was a hierarchy. At the top were the Greatest Physicians of Lower and Upper Egypt, followed by the chief medical officer of the land. Under him were superintendents and inspectors of physicians, the chief physicians and, at the bottom, the physicians themselves. Throughout the pharaonic times, the most sought-after positions were in the royal court. These doctors looked after the health of the pharaohs, their families and members of their court.

Many ancient civilizations, such as the Romans, Greeks, and Egyptians, pushed medical knowledge forward until the Middle Ages, when medical knowledge was believed to have slowed down. However, that is not the case. The Middle Ages were a time of change and improvement, they shaped the modern world. The Middle Ages revolutionized medical practices, physicians linked filth to the spread of disease, many practical diagnoses and treatments for common illnesses were discovered, and medical training programs in universities became well established.

Medical education has changed excessively throughout the years. Physicians in the 18th century had no knowledge of