MBI 131 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Cholera, Ancient Greek Philosophy, Flagellant
12 Sep 2016
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Document Summary
Historical highlights of community health in western civilization: ancient prehistorical communities. Have to follow travelling animals to have a source of food. Communities develop near access to resources in order to sustain life. Fire allows to cook food which makes you less susceptible to bacterial contamination. Come up with ways to prevent drinking water contamination: ancient civilizations. Often believed in supernatural causation of disease. They saw disease as a form of divine punishment. Egyptians monitored pulse and temperature to assess body function. Chinese used opium, acupuncture, and herbal remedies to treat disease. The code of hammurabi, babylonian king, describes laws pertaining to physicians and health practices: says what the monetary worth of treatments are, sets the stage for malpractice penalties etc. Book of leviticus provides instructions concerning personal hygiene, diet, sanitation, isolation of lepers, suitable marriage partners etc: people understood contagiousness of disease, so they isolated lepers, finding suitable marriage partner prevents incest.
