Health Sciences 1002A/B Chapter Notes - Chapter 12: Stethoscope, Biomedicine, Ivan Illich
21 Mar 2016
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Chapter 12 medicine, medical dominance and public health. Early societies, sickness attributed to spiritual/supernatural causes. Turned to shamans intermediate between natural & spiritual worlds. Used prayers, incantations, spells, sacriices to drive away spirits. Hippocrates (460 377 bce): father of medicine rejected superstition/magic insisted every disease has a natural cause. Humoral theory of disease elements (air, earth, ire, water) were associated with particular humor. Illness resulted when 4 humors were not in balance (blood, phlegm, yellow bile, black bile) Early christianity: attributed disease/illness as punishment for sins or test from god. Medical practice based in monastery and controlled by church. Physicians = blasphemy, did not use religious intervention. Eventually medicine became responsibly of secular clergy. Christian views on medicine lost authority, humoral theory rejected. Physicians were graduates of medical schools mostly wealthy had access. Villagers relied on cheaper traditions (spiritual/herbal healing) Scientiic revolution (17 sciences th ) & age of enlightenment (18 th ): new ideas in.
