Innholdsfortegnelse for The Story of Medicine i History Extra

“Nose jobs and cataract operations might seem like recent medical innovations. It may surprise you to learn, then, that nasal reconstruction and ophthalmic procedures were first undertaken at least as long ago as the sixth century BC, when they were described in Sanskrit in an early Indian medical textbook. The history of medicine is littered with such eye-opening (and eye-healing) innovations – and this special edition looks in detail at the most groundbreaking developments and the pioneers behind them, as well as the social aspects of diagnosis and treatment. We explore the cures prescribed by physicians in ancient Greece and Rome, as well as examining the medical practices of pharaonic Egypt and the work of the midwives of antiquity. We introduce the people whose work transformed clinical care and surgery:…

Building sites can be dangerous places. And that’s particularly true when the buildings in question are monumental tombs constructed without the benefit of modern equipment and safeguards – as in the settlement of Deir el-Medina, home to the workmen labouring on the tombs in the Valley of the Kings at Thebes (today’s Luxor). Deir el-Medina was occupied by about 600 artisans for 450 years during the New Kingdom, in the second half of the second millennium BC. Records of absenteeism note reasons including personal illness as well as caring for other sick workmen; scorpion stings were a common occurrence, and in one instance a workman had fought with his wife. But though that might paint a familiar picture, to understand the story of health and medicine in ancient Egypt we…

TAKING THE TUBE Ancient Greek tests and treatments for fertility involved garlic, freckles and tied-up testicles Several helpful fertility and pregnancy tests are preserved in the gynaecological treatises of the Hippocratic Corpus, a series of texts written in the fifth and fourth centuries BC and inaccurately attributed to Hippocrates of Kos. It was stated in these texts that a tube in a woman’s body connected the vagina with the mouth, and fertility tests were intended to determine whether the tube was blocked. For instance, a powerful-smelling ingredient such as garlic or oil of bitter almonds could be inserted into a woman’s vagina; if the smell could be detected from her mouth, it had travelled up from her vagina, indicating that her tube was free from obstruction and that she would…

Carole Rawcliffe is professor emerita of history at the University of East Anglia. She co-edited Society in an Age of Plague (Boydell Press, 2013) with Linda Clark Tom James is professor emeritus in archaeology and history at the University of Winchester. His books include The Story of England (Tempus, 2003) Mark Ormrod was emeritus professor of history at the University of York. He co-edited The Black Death in England, 1348–1500 (Paul Watkins Publishing, 1996) with Phillip Lindley Ole Jørgen Benedictow is professor emeritus at the University of Oslo. He is author of The Black Death 1346–1353: The Complete History (Boydell Press, 2004)…

In antiquity, the only safe way to feed a newborn baby was breastfeeding. Finding animal milk (usually goat’s milk) in a big city such as Rome was not always easy, and the milk could prove indigestible or even dangerous. The vast majority of babies in antiquity were breastfed, often for what we would consider to be long periods of time – over 18 months. Ancient baby bottles have been discovered, but they were probably designed for feeding toddlers rather than very small babies. Debates over baby feeding raged among the Roman upper classes. In one camp were advocates of maternal feeding; in the other, advocates of wet-nursing, at least in some circumstances. The physician Soranus, though not opposed to maternal feeding, acknowledged that the process could be exhausting for the…

Between 1918 and 1919, influenza swept around the world in a pandemic that would soon come to be known as the ‘Spanish flu’. It has been estimated that one in three people on Earth – 500 million – fell ill, and between 50 and 100 million of them died. It was the greatest tidal wave of extermination since the Black Death of the 14th century, yet it’s often treated as a mere footnote to the First World War, which killed fewer than 20 million people. But as more information comes to light about the disaster, its true contours are revealing themselves. Though the origins of the Spanish flu remain a mystery, one thing seems certain: it didn’t start in Spain. By the time the first cases were recorded in that…

The world’s most erotic and elaborate fertility aid was unveiled in the spring of 1781 after months of fanfare. Measuring 12 by 9 feet (3.7 by 2.7 metres), the “medico, magnetico, musico, electrical bed” was canopied by a vast dome covered in musical automata, festoons of fresh flowers, and a pair of live turtle doves. At its summit a statue of Hymen, god of marriage, held aloft a torch “flaming with electrical fire”. As mechanical musicians played, stimulating oriental fragrances and “aethereal” gases were released from a reservoir inside the dome. Its underside was lined with mirrors, reflecting streams of light playing over the pillows, not to mention every antic of the lovers. A tilting inner bed frame encouraged the “gentleman” to “follow his lady down-hill” to help conception. Meanwhile,…

Adding to the debate about syphilis were potent didactic fictions. Sarah Grand’s 1890s novels The Heavenly Twins and The Beth Book, featuring syphilitic men and helpless women, used the disease as a critique of marriage and class attitudes. Ibsen’s tremendously influential Ghosts, about syphilis in a family, became widely known as a text but for many years was not performed in London due to theatre censorship, except for one private performance in 1891. The play’s hero, Oswald Alving, does not know that he contracted the disease from a parent, instead thinking that his own behaviour caused his syphilis because his mother has deceived him about the nobility and sanctity of his father. It was markedly shocking to audiences that Mrs Alving’s evident respectability did nothing to protect her loved ones.…

❀ 7 (more) surprising facts about the history of medicine Early attempts at nasal reconstruction and asthma treatment ❀ Penicillin: when mould made medical history Fleming’s serendipitous discovery that boosted the evolution of antibiotics ❀ Marie Curie: mother of radiotherapy Explore the life of the extraordinary scientist who discovered radium ❀ Medicine’s big bang Ten 19th-century developments that transformed the field of medicine ❀ Pioneer: Edward Jenner The country physician who developed an effective smallpox vaccine ❀ First World War: a medical milestone? How conflict sparked advances in prosthetics and plastic surgery…

If you were a French soldier injured on the front line during the First World War, you may have been among the first to be X-rayed in a portable radiography unit – probably unaware that the woman surveying your wounds was not just a caring nurse but also a double Nobel Prize winner. Yet the development of ambulances fitted with X-ray equipment was the brainchild of the scientist who invented the word ‘radioactivity’ – and who fitted, drove and operated these ‘Little Curies’ herself. Though Marie Curie is celebrated worldwide as France’s greatest scientist, it was her adopted country through marriage to a Frenchman. Born Maria Skłodowska in Warsaw in 1867, as a rebellious young woman she defied the ban on speaking Polish imposed by that city’s Russian occupiers. Her…

10,000 BC c10,000 BC Trepanning – the procedure of drilling or scraping a hole in the cranium to relieve pressure or treat other health problems – is widespread, seen in skulls found all over the world (see page 102). c7,000 BC Stone Age people use flint-headed tools to drill holes in molar teeth, demonstrated by archaeological evidence found in Mehrgarh in Pakistan. In 2012, new evidence from a jawbone found in Slovenia revealed the use of beeswax as a filling around 6,500 years ago. 2,000 BC c1,800 BC The first doctors whose names survive (and who included women – work in Egypt. Medical papyri reveal that, though major surgery was not possible, the ancient Egyptians were skilled at treating wounds and orthopaedic trauma. The oldest such document, the Kahun papyrus,…

Women in ancient Egypt were, of course, afflicted with the same complaints that affect women today: period pains, fertility problems, miscarriage, labour pains, birth injuries and, if they lived long enough, the menopause. The Kahun Papyrus (c1850 BC) is devoted to diseases of women and pregnancy. It had been so heavily used that its ancient owner repaired it with a patch. Extracts from two of its case studies are revealing. The first is an “Examination of a woman who is ill from her womb wandering…” The womb was not, it was believed, a static organ, but moved around the body wreaking havoc. This concept, first mentioned in the Kahun Papyrus, remained common in the west until the 18th century. The Greek word hustera (womb) gave us the term hysteria, a…

Number 28 Leicester Square, an affluent address in late-18th-century London, was the home of Scottish-born surgeon John Hunter and his wife Anne. With an unremarkable exterior, the Hunter residence was rather unusual behind the front door. The reception rooms would have been normal enough for a wealthy family home, but the back of the house had been converted into an extraordinary museum for Hunter’s collection of anatomical samples in rows and rows of jars, plus other natural oddities such as a stuffed giraffe and a whale skull. The collection was designed to be seen, though strictly by invitation only. For the most part it comprised Hunter’s own preparations – objects exciting an anatomist’s interest, in cases and jars, preparations vital to his teaching work (just as such preparations and dissections…

The London Cuckold, a ballad printed between c1685 and 1688, describes a man who takes leave of his “witty Wife” to “behold the glory” of the army on campaign at nearby Hounslow Heath. On his return, unaware that his wife has been unfaithful, he is lavished with attention: “When he came home she gave him Kisses, and Sack-Posset very good, Caudles too, she never misses, for they warm and heat the Blood Such things wilt create desire, And new kindle Cupid’s Fire; These things made him kiss his Wife, And to call her Love and Life.” It’s an amusing image: the guilty wife feeding her cuckolded husband with treats intended to “kindle Cupid’s fire” – stoke amorous affection and increase arousal – to make him enamoured anew and even, perhaps,…

The Contagious Diseases (CD) Acts of 1864, 1866 and 1869 aimed to reduce sexually transmitted infections in the army and navy by apprehending and forcibly examining prostitutes in ‘protected districts’ near naval camps and army bases. Women suspected of being prostitutes were subject to compulsory inspections and could be detained for treatment (which was not particularly effective) for up to three months. The laws were part of a paternalistic view of society – done for the public good, along with the Factory Acts, clean water supplies and vaccination against smallpox. Yet the lawmakers were not counting on the reaction of newly educated women, who resented the double standard. After all, women were subject to compulsory treatment – but men were not. The CD Acts spawned the first effective political campaigning…

1 Prehistoric people needed surgery like a hole in the head In 1865, American archaeologist Ephraim George Squier left Cuzco, Peru, in possession of an old skull given to him by a collector. The artefact ignited debate in medical circles on both sides of the Atlantic. Dating from around AD 1400–1530, the skull had a rectangular hole in its frontal lobe. Squier shared the find with the New York Academy of Medicine, and with French neuroscientist Paul Broca, who showed that the hole had been deliberately made while the person was still alive. Examples of trepanning have since been found world-wide, dating back as far as 10,000 BC. The practice appears to have developed independently in many cultures, and using various methods: in some examples the skull was scraped with…

Percivall Pott: Identified a carcinogen Tumours have been investigated since the days of the ancient Egyptians, but it wasn’t till the late 18th century that a specific carcinogen was identified. In London in 1775 the surgeon Percivall Pott demonstrated that soot was a cause of scrotal cancer among chimney sweeps. Although the cruel practice of sending young boys up hot chimneys was decisively abolished in 1875, the same chemical – inhaled by cigarette smokers – still causes lung cancer. Rudolf Virchow: Discovered leukaemia Often celebrated for making medicine scientific, this German physician made the crucial link between certain cancers and the inflammation associated with white blood cells. He correctly identified the blood cancer he named leukaemia in 1847, but his theories were taken seriously only towards the end of the…

“The Doctor has made this world struggle probably one of the least deadly ever fought in proportion to the numbers engaged … of the wounded who survive six hours, 90% recover, and of those who arrive at the base hospital, 98% get well … the medical man has the privilege of being called upon by the State to serve his country by the exercise of the science and art in which he has been brought up.” In January 1917 an editorial in the Lancet praised doctors for their role in the war – a view that was widely shared. Not only were doctors exercising their “science and art” but the war was giving them unprecedented opportunities to experiment and to progress. The war is “a great clinical trial and laboratory”…

❀ Health and healing in ancient Egypt Diseases, diagnoses and treatments in the land of the pharaohs ❀ Leprosy through the ages How the disfiguring illness was viewed in centuries past ❀ Snakes and ladders: wonder cures of the ancient world Discover the universal antidotes and curious remedies of antiquity ❀ Marked by plague Explore nine places around Britain affected by the Black Death ❀ The Black Death: the historians’ view Four experts answer the big questions about the medieval pestilence ❀ Pioneers: John Snow The Victorian doctor who discovered how cholera is transmitted ❀ Call the (Roman) midwife Meet the women who managed childbirth in the Roman empire ❀ Portraits of the plague Poignant photos showing the impact of the third plague pandemic ❀ The fatal flu that gripped…

The Third Plague Pandemic (1855–1959) was unprecedented for a number of reasons. For the first time in history bubonic plague reached all five continents, striking major cities from Hong Kong (in 1894) to Bombay (1896), Sydney (1900), Cape Town (1901) and Los Angeles (1924). The pandemic left an estimated 12 million dead (including 10 million on the Indian subcontinent), and saw the implementation of extraordinary measures for its containment. The previous two plague pandemics (in 541–42 and 1346–53) had left society baffled as to their origins. Yet by the late 19th century scientists had a far greater understanding of plague – in fact, in Hong Kong in 1894 they were able to isolate the bacillus that causes it. By 1905, scientists had also acknowledged the role of the rat and…

The single most useful piece of advice that Dr James Graham could give his fellow Georgians would be that they should wash their genitals. “I would… proclaim… with a loud and affectionate voice, that bathing their private parts with cold water thoroughly… was in my opinion of the highest importance to the preservation of their health and strength, beauty, and brilliancy, bodily and intellectual.” Morning and night was the recommended regime, and always – always – after sex. Spouses would be unlikely to stray once they were used to the sweetness of genital hygiene. And “the rich purse of Venus, the manly standard of love” would always be ready to obey “the summons of Hymen!” Tall, handsome and very persuasive, James Graham (1745–94) had shot to national fame even before…

In October 1711, Elizabeth Freke, an elderly gentlewoman living in West Bilney, Norfolk, busied herself planning a trip to London. At the age of 69, Elizabeth – ever the pessimist – decided to make an inventory of “some of the best things” in her house, just in case she was not to return home again. The room-by-room inventory, written into her notebook of remembrances and culinary and medical recipes, took four days to complete. It records Elizabeth’s worldly possessions, ranging from jewellery, clothing, furniture and linens to pots and pans in the kitchen. In the midst of this detailed list, Elizabeth reveals to us that the five locked cupboards in her closet contained “several bottles of cordiall water 114 quarts; of pintts of cordy water 36. And of the severall…

A century ago, debates about the scourge of syphilis plunged Britain into a heady battle of science, sex and politics. A powerful strain in Victorian thinking considered syphilis a curse from God – a punishment for sinful acts. Respectable professionals felt that promoting a sense of shame about the disease was in the public interest. Syphilis was almost literally unmentionable – if referred to at all it was using euphemisms such as ‘the social disease’, emphasising not individual illness but a general malaise. Government health insurance, sick clubs and benefit societies refused to pay out to those with syphilis because it was a ‘misconduct disease’. Inevitably, this resulted in concealment. Shame about the disease contributed to the proliferation of quacks offering secretive quick fixes. These ‘cures’ were considered credible only…