Post by Mr Modica on Sept 26, 2015 20:22:22 GMT
The Roman Empire was really important to Roman medicine and way of life. It made the Romans rich and so they could afford to pay for doctors. They also lived in big cities that were cramped together and caused public health problems that the Emperors needed to solve. The government played an important role because they were influential and centralised and so ideas spread quickly.
The army were stationed all over the Empire and the Romans tried really hard to keep them healthy. A lot of their medical advances came from trying to keep the army healthy. The army also invaded a lot of places, like Alexandria and took ideas from the places they invaded, like Greek religious treatments.
Romans used religious treatments when they were desperate. Rome got the plague in 295BC and they turned to Asclepions to cure it.
Rome had doctors, who were frequently women. They were trained in places like Alexandria. Some doctors were paid to stay in cities and treat the poor. Roman doctors treated people with medicines made from herbs, like the civilisations before them, religion was often mixed in too. They also suggested a good diet and exercise would improve your general health.
The Romans believed in miasma – the theory that disease came from bad smells in the air. Galen suggested that this was the case.
Galen was an influential Roman doctor. People were still reading and using his treatments and ideas in the Middle Ages. He was born in Greece and travelled through Alexandria’s great library (and dissected human bodies while there) and went to work in a Roman gladiator school. He then went to Rome to become the Emperor’s doctor. When he first got to Rome, he held a public medical dissection of a pig where he proved that the brain controls the body, not the heart, by cutting the throat of a pig to stop it from squealing. He continued some of Hippocrates’ ideas such as careful observation of a patient and recording everything that happened to the patient. He developed Hippocrates’ ideas of the Four Humour into the Theory of the Opposites, where you used the opposite humour to cure illnesses – such as hot spices for a cold when you have an excess of cold, wet, phlegm.
Some of Galen’s ideas were wrong and came from dissecting animals rather than humans, for example he wrongly suggested that we have two jaw bones, but that is true of dogs and not humans. However, he wrote 60 books on medical subjects and the people who came after him continued to teach that his ideas were always right for the next 1500 years.
The Romans’ great contribution to medicine was public health. They believed in practical solutions to problems and did a lot to try to cure the problem of the spread of disease in the cities. Across the Empire, the Romans built sewers to take away waste, aqueducts to bring fresh water to the cities, public toilets and water fountains and baths. The baths were designed to be so cheap that even the poorest Roman could afford to go there. Baths were built like modern spas where you could have massages, bathe in different temperatures of water, take part in sport and have dinner with your friends. The Romans passed public health measures to directly help their army, for example they said that army camps shouldn’t be close to swamps because it tended to make the soldiers ill.
Make sure this is just the basis for your revision, using your class notes too!
www.springwoodgcsehistory.blogspot.co.uk/p/medicine-through-time-overview.html
The army were stationed all over the Empire and the Romans tried really hard to keep them healthy. A lot of their medical advances came from trying to keep the army healthy. The army also invaded a lot of places, like Alexandria and took ideas from the places they invaded, like Greek religious treatments.
Romans used religious treatments when they were desperate. Rome got the plague in 295BC and they turned to Asclepions to cure it.
Rome had doctors, who were frequently women. They were trained in places like Alexandria. Some doctors were paid to stay in cities and treat the poor. Roman doctors treated people with medicines made from herbs, like the civilisations before them, religion was often mixed in too. They also suggested a good diet and exercise would improve your general health.
The Romans believed in miasma – the theory that disease came from bad smells in the air. Galen suggested that this was the case.
Galen was an influential Roman doctor. People were still reading and using his treatments and ideas in the Middle Ages. He was born in Greece and travelled through Alexandria’s great library (and dissected human bodies while there) and went to work in a Roman gladiator school. He then went to Rome to become the Emperor’s doctor. When he first got to Rome, he held a public medical dissection of a pig where he proved that the brain controls the body, not the heart, by cutting the throat of a pig to stop it from squealing. He continued some of Hippocrates’ ideas such as careful observation of a patient and recording everything that happened to the patient. He developed Hippocrates’ ideas of the Four Humour into the Theory of the Opposites, where you used the opposite humour to cure illnesses – such as hot spices for a cold when you have an excess of cold, wet, phlegm.
Some of Galen’s ideas were wrong and came from dissecting animals rather than humans, for example he wrongly suggested that we have two jaw bones, but that is true of dogs and not humans. However, he wrote 60 books on medical subjects and the people who came after him continued to teach that his ideas were always right for the next 1500 years.
The Romans’ great contribution to medicine was public health. They believed in practical solutions to problems and did a lot to try to cure the problem of the spread of disease in the cities. Across the Empire, the Romans built sewers to take away waste, aqueducts to bring fresh water to the cities, public toilets and water fountains and baths. The baths were designed to be so cheap that even the poorest Roman could afford to go there. Baths were built like modern spas where you could have massages, bathe in different temperatures of water, take part in sport and have dinner with your friends. The Romans passed public health measures to directly help their army, for example they said that army camps shouldn’t be close to swamps because it tended to make the soldiers ill.
Make sure this is just the basis for your revision, using your class notes too!
www.springwoodgcsehistory.blogspot.co.uk/p/medicine-through-time-overview.html