Medicine timeline

Kelancey the Green

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Medicine timeline

« on: 22 January 2007, 03:34:14 »

Well, okay, hopefully this is the right place to post this.

I don't have much yet, just some starting information to put onto the site. This is more of just gathering up two armsful of papers and notes, carrying them to this site, and dropping them into this post. And this is nothing original yet, this is strictly from Terran history.

Please forgive me, I'm just suggesting a starting platform from which to build. grin

What I'm proposing to do is to use this as a gauge for the progression of medical knowledge in Santharia, with maybe some footnotes about medical practices in other parts of the world.

Please tell me if this is not appropriate to post in here! huh

A Brief History of Medicine

Ancient Egypt:
Egyptians healers were also priests, basing much of their practice on mystical beliefs. Different gods were felt to influence different parts of the body, hence priest-healers tended to specialize in treatment of particular body systems. Superstition, ritual and memorized technique were used in addressing illnesses. Every patient with the same complaint (eg. headache) was treated with the same remedy, regardless of different causes of their symptoms.
Even in these early times, they had knowledge of surgical procedures to resect tumors and cysts, and applying direct pressure on a cut to stanch bleeding. Although anesthetics were unheard of, they did know about cauterization to reduce bleeding from wounds. They had methods for reduction of dislocated joints, and made use of splints for external fixation of bone fractures. They had knowledge of antiseptic technique, using willow bark and leaves to reduce the likelihood of wound infections.
They had a fair knowledge of the function of different organs. Surgeons and other priests taught anatomy from one generation to the next. They knew that blood vessels carry blood throughout the body, although the idea of a closed circuit of blood vessels (arteries carry blood from the heart to the body, and the blood returns to the heart in the veins) was yet to be developed.
Embalming and mummification were developed to ensure that the body would remain intact once the deceased’s soul reached the afterlife. The heart, lungs, liver and spleen were removed and preserved in separate jars. The brain was extracted and discarded. The body was then stuffed and sewn up. The body would be coated with a salt-like preservative called Natron that would dry up the body. After 60 days, the body would be wrapped in cloth, ready to be placed in the sarcophagus to be entombed.

Ancient Greece:
Healthy living was a high priority in ancient Greece, founded upon the ‘Regimen’, a prescription for healthy eating, drinking, sleeping, and exercise habits.
A philosopher, Hippocrates, who lived from 460 to 377 BC, developed his own method of training physicians and treating patients. His oath, an ethical code to students of medicine, or a modern version of it, is still recited by graduating medical students to this day (q.v. below). His method instructed medical practitioners to interview and examine each patient, arriving at the diagnosis and treatment most suited to each person’s condition.
It is interesting to note that in the time of Hippocrates, both midwives and healers attended pregnant women. It was also a common practice of that time to prescribe medications to induce abortion. The moral climate of ancient Greece freely permitted abortion; however, mutilation of the mother, such as implantation of a pessary (a uterine sling inserted to prevent the uterus from falling down) was an abhorrent sin, with both the mother and healer being punished either by exile or death.
Illnesses were often allowed to run their course, and healers would prescribe medicines mainly to alleviate pain. Anesthesia was still relatively foreign, although Eastern medicine had by this time already developed potent pain medicines (opioids) that could put people to sleep during surgery.
The philosopher Aristotle proposed the Theory of the Four Bodily Humours, these being blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. It was thought that optimal health came from having a balance of these humours, and illness came from an imbalance of these. For example, fever was thought of as a sanguinous ailment, the cure of which was to let off blood by application of leeches. They also attributed one humour to each of the seasons: Yellow bile (bilious illness) with summer, black bile (choleric illness) with autumn, phlegm (phlegmatic illness) with winter, and blood (sanguinous illness) with spring.
A cult of “natural” or “water” healing came around the time of Hippocrates, called the Cult of Asclepios (Latin Æsculapius), the Greek god of healing. These cultists were attendants to the baths of Asclepios in Epidaurus. They attributed the bath water with healing powers for pregnant women, easing pain and discomfort during pregnancy. As well, crippled people would come to sleep near the baths to pray for a miraculous cure of their affliction. (It was thought that if a crippled person actually bathed in the waters of Asclepios, they would befoul the water, and any pregnant woman who bathed there, or their unborn children, would “catch” a similar impairment.)
Dissection was practiced in Egypt, and from exchange of information, the Greeks learned a great deal about human anatomy. For a brief period of time in the 300’s BC, vivisection of criminals sentenced to death was carried out, which allowed a window into bodily processes of living humans.

Hippocratic Oath
“I swear by Æsculapius, Hygeia, and Panacea, and I take to witness all the gods, all the goddesses, to keep according to my ability and my judgement, the following Oath.
To consider dear to me as my parents him who taught me this art; to live in common with him and if necessary to share my goods with him; To look upon his children as my own brothers, to teach them this art if they so desire without fee or written promise; to impart to my sons and the sons of the master who taught me and the disciples who have enrolled themselves and have agreed to the rules of the profession, but to these alone the precepts and the instruction.
I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone.
To please no one will I prescribe a deadly drug nor give advice which may cause his death.
Nor will I give a woman a pessary to procure abortion.
But I will preserve the purity of my life and my arts.
I will not cut for stone, even for patients in whom the disease is manifest; I will leave this operation to be performed by practitioners, specialists in this art.
In every house where I come I will enter only for the good of my patients, keeping myself far from all intentional ill-doing and all seduction and especially from the pleasures of love with women or with men, be they free or slaves.
All that may come to my knowledge in the exercise of my profession or in daily commerce with men, which ought not to be spread abroad, I will keep secret and will never reveal.
If I keep this oath faithfully, may I enjoy my life and practice my art, respected by all men and in all times; but if I swerve from it or violate it, may the reverse be my lot.”

Ancient Rome:
Rome contributed greatly to public sanitation with aqueducts, sewers, and large public baths.
“Primum non nocere”, or “First, do no harm”, often ascribed to Hippocrates, was actually coined by Galen, a Latin medical practitioner who would expound on the Hippocratic method centuries later. He studied Barbary apes through dissection and vivisection, and greatly advanced the body of knowledge of physiology and working of living animals. He also emphasized the use of logical assessment of patients and their conditions rather than religious belief for the treatment of disease.

Early Middle East:
Arabic medical practice was quite advanced in comparison to the practices of Europe. They practiced dental extractions, and drilling of dental abcesses using a small bow to spin the drill was common. Hospitals were founded in large cities. The hospital of Baghdad, being one of the largest, was constructed in 850 AD. Examinations applied to medical students were required to practice medicine, beginning around 931 AD.
Rhazes encouraged practitioners to pay close attention to detail, as he was the first to distinguish smallpox from measles. Avicenna wrote the Canon of Medicine, which is still referred to in medical schools today. Albucasis advised planning surgery before doing an operation, limiting the time and exploration during a surgical procedure.
Arabic chemists developed distillation and sublimation to purify compounds. They also made use of senna, musk, and camphor, which are still used today in natural remedies.

Ancient China:
The Chinese were isolated geographically and ideologically from the Western world. Their system of healing dealt with “chi”, a person’s bodily energy, which was separated into Yin (dark, passive, cool) and Yang (light, aggressive, hot). An imbalance of these energies was thought to lead to illness, which was treated with taking out the excess energy.
Chinese anatomy was very descript, cataloging the contours of the body in careful detail. They viewed each part of the body was linked to one of the internal organs of bodily process, and thus releasing excess energy from an external body part would relieve illness in the corresponding bodily function. Chinese anatomists mapped out the points on the body and described these links in painstaking detail. Acupuncture grew out of this, involving the insertion of very fine needles into one or more designated points on the skin to release excess energy.

Medieval Europe:
Science and medicine took giant leaps backward during the Dark Ages of Europe. The sanctity of the body in the eyes of the Catholic Church prohibited dissection. Medical practitioners could not examine a patient of the opposite sex; as a possible benefit from this, midwifery soared in popularity, and obstetrical knowledge was perhaps the one field of medicine which surged during this period.
Mostly borne out of belief in magic, superstition, and a return to hermetical thought, medical practice of the time focused on charms and talismans. Illness was seen as a punishment by God, and thus spiritual pilgrimages and other acts of atonement were commonly prescribed. Practitioners of this time are credited as having shortened the lives of many despots through bleeding, toxic herbal elixirs, and other antiquated or hazardous means.

Renaissance Europe:
A revolution in medicine took place, as logic and reason displaced faith as the core of acquisition of knowledge. Direct observation, experimentation, and thoughtful analysis lead to the development of the scientific method: an excruciatingly slow but effective way of testing hypotheses to establish causal relationships between two events. To demonstrate, a piece of meat left out in open air for a week will have maggots growing on it. A second piece of meat, if covered to allow air but not flies to contact the meat, will putrefy but will not develop maggots. This proof demonstrated that maggots are borne from flies, not the meat itself.
Philip von Hohenheim, 1493-1541, later called Paracelsus, fathered the field of toxicology. To him is attributed the quote, "All things are poison and nothing is without poison, only the dose permits something not to be poisonous."
Andreas Vesalius published Tabulae Sex in 1538, which corrected many false assertions about human anatomy. He proposed the (correct) closed-circuit model of blood circulation; argued (again, correctly) that the liver has two, not five, lobes; and demonstrated that muscles are composed in layers (also correct).

Sources:
Medicine Through Time. http://www.schoolshistory.org.uk/medicine.htm

Wikipedia, various topics. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocratic_Oath#The_Hippocratic_Oath


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Drasil Razorfang

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Re: Medicine timeline

« Reply #1 on: 22 January 2007, 03:50:50 »

Great background info, but now you have to apply it to Santharia. This is probably going to require alot of reseach(going through all the tribes, orders ect. and finding compatabile matches) and might take some time.


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Clurion

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Re: Medicine timeline

« Reply #2 on: 22 January 2007, 04:14:08 »

well i have to say good luck clancy but also if you need any help let me know and i will.


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Alysse the Likely

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Re: Medicine timeline

« Reply #3 on: 22 January 2007, 07:51:03 »

Wow, this is quite the research project!

If what you are interested in is developing a "History of Medicine" for Caelereth, that is going to be a n awful lot of work. Perhaps you should start with something a little smaller, or more specifc--is this only human medicine? I would definitely recommend getting Bard Judith's assistance--as the Herbarium mistress, she knows about herbs and plants and then tighten your topic somewhat.

Perhaps you can start specifically with human medical knowledge in Southern Sarvonia, that being one of the most developed, settled and civilised regions on Caelereth. Then you can expand further into other regions, or ask the moderators of those regions for a brief paragraph or two on any specialized medical developments unique to their region. I'd be glad to send help you with information on Kuglimz medical treatments and medicinal herbs, for instance. And Talia would have information on what the Shendar people use for various ailments. And because magic DOES work on Caelereth, the Ximaxian mages might be involved in some medical/magical research too.

Anyway, I'm not trying to dssuade you, I think this is an amazing idea and long overdue for development--but you are going to need some input from the developers of various tribes, since there may not always be much medical information already on site.

I look forwards to seeing your project realized! Hopefully these suggestion are useful to you.

Alysse the Likely


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Kelancey the Green

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Re: Medicine timeline

« Reply #4 on: 22 January 2007, 10:05:16 »

Alysse, your guidance and suggestions are greatly welcomed. As well, thank you, Drasil for your tips, and thanks to Clurion for your kind offer for assistance.

Alysse, your point about magic working on Santharia is well taken, and that's what I forgot to address in that first--I don't know that I'd call my first regurgitation a "post", more of just dropping information off the web into the forum. Anyway, what I forgot to propose was: Could medicine and magical progress peaceably coexist, without one trying to disprove or cast out the other? I'd like to hope that they could, just allowing that each would permit some grey area between the two realms of knowledge which neither would try to lay sole claim to.

In modern-day Earth, there are just a lot of things that medicine either can't ascertain, or will never be able to treat completely adequately, or whatever. Many of these conditions are easy to name--multiple sclerosis, for example. Although medicine has prescribed treatments for this condition, few or none of them are entirely sufficient to mop up all the problems associated with it. Most people with the condition try at least 2 alternative therapies in the course of their illness, be it acupuncture, yoga, tai chi, meditation, aromatherapy, or whatever. Does it work? Some people remain symptom-free just sticking with their alternative therapy, and some people fail every treatment, medical or homeopathic, and we still can't explain why that happens.

So, just sticking with the immediate circumstance of modern-day medical science, there's a lot we can't explain, and perhaps never will be able to. Even with our advanced technology and so on, there's still room for magic to exist, just maybe not in the operating room or in the emergency room.

Sound okay? peace


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Ta'lia of the Seven Jewels

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Re: Medicine timeline

« Reply #5 on: 22 January 2007, 12:49:59 »

No Clancy, please don't restrict clerics to those areas where contemporan medicine fails like there were times on earth where god was needed to explain unresearched and unknown things.
Nehtor's clericals will use whatever help they get in form of herbs and knowledge how to mend a broken leg to heal. Why bother a god if you can do it yourself?Their advantage to normal healers is that they can ask their god in addition to assist the healing. Of course they will try to treat uncurable illnesses as well, but not only .


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Mina

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Re: Medicine timeline

« Reply #6 on: 22 January 2007, 13:05:59 »

Quote

Anyway, what I forgot to propose was: Could medicine and magical progress peaceably coexist, without one trying to disprove or cast out the other? I'd like to hope that they could, just allowing that each would permit some grey area between the two realms of knowledge which neither would try to lay sole claim to.

Well, aside from clerics, there are also other magic users. I don't know about druids, but Ximaxian magi will probably treat magic as an additional 'tool' that could be used for healing. There are spells that can aid with healing, but mostly they'd need some medical knowledge in order to be used properly, I think. Most likely there'd be some magi who specialise as healers; they'd have all the abilities of mundane healers, with the added advantage of being able to use magic to assist with the healing.

Magic and science aren't opposed to each other, or even separate. In Santharia, just as in the medieval era IRL, there wasn't really a distinction between magic and science.


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Kelancey the Green

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Re: Medicine timeline

« Reply #7 on: 22 January 2007, 17:03:35 »

Okay, thanks, that gives me a much better picture of the times of Santharia 1667 a.S. I apologize if I implied that magic was a last-ditch effort to treat the untreatable or those who fall into the grey area. I rather view magic just as you described it, Talia: Both magic and medicine have their place, and often it's best when they're used in conjunction.

I have just a few quick questions, if anyone knows by chance, by which to gauge a general timeline:
1) Has gunpowder been invented yet?
2) Does Ximax set the standard of all scientific progress, or do they incorporate
outside knowledge into their body of knowledge?
3) Do colleges exist? (I thought I read somewhere that they do, just checking.)
4) Is dissection of cadavers permitted, or has it ever been permitted?

Thanks for your help!


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Mina

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Re: Medicine timeline

« Reply #8 on: 22 January 2007, 17:21:19 »

1. Gunpowder hasn't been invented. IIRC, it's not even possible; the world is designed so that gunpowder could not be made, I think.

2. Well, they specialise in magic, but magi are also generally scholars, so they could well have a few experts in other fields too. Considering how Ximaxian magic has a philisophical basis, it won't be surprising if quite a few of the magi also dabble in other somewhat philosophical fields, such as alchemy. But, no, they don't set the standards except in magic. There are, after all, a lot more scholars throughout the kingdom, who don't spend most of their time studying and practicing magic.

3. I'm not sure about that. I'd guess that they do, but there aren't many of them.

4. Er, not sure about this one either. Talia might have a better idea regarding this. Reanimation of corpses (ie. creating zombies) certainly isn't though.


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Ta'lia of the Seven Jewels

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Re: Medicine timeline

« Reply #9 on: 22 January 2007, 17:25:03 »

Mina has beaten me with posting!

1) Has gunpowder been invented yet?

No

2) Does Ximax set the standard of all scientific progress, or do they incorporate outside knowledge into their body of knowledge?

I don‘t think that you can say, that ximax sets the standard for scientific progress, it is just the leading force for mundane, mostly human magic in Santharia. I think they will take ideas from outside, try to explain what they see and either incorporate or ..well, ask Mina or Marvin. They would surely try to explain how Krean Magic works (once they get hold of it) as they puzzle over clerical magic.

Medieval scientists are also the alchemists (often gnomes), the stargazers (Ciosa) etc. . there is „scientific“ research going on in every bigger town - there are always people who want to improve something.

3) Do colleges exist? (I thought I read somewhere that they do, just checking.)

What do you understand under college? Higher school?

there are universities in the bigger towns like New Santhala, Varcopas, Milkengrad etc, maybe smaller ones, clerical orientated in Elsreth or specialised ones in other not so big towns.

We are thinking about if the current king tiandor will introduce schools for everyone (who can pay for it), but so far no schools exists, children of nobles get their „higher“ education at the court or other noble or clerical places. (this was the case in Germany around... 1300? )

4) Is dissection of cadavers permitted, or has it ever been permitted?

Hmm, that is not yet decided. I know from that book I recommended you to read eventually that it was forbidden in Europe while the arabic countries were allowed to do it. In this book is described, that people had to die of an appendicitis, because it was forbidden to open a human body, even after it was dead.
people have surely looked into animal bodies and might deduce from there how a human body looks like.


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Re: Medicine timeline

« Reply #10 on: 22 January 2007, 17:43:43 »

Just thought I should mention, I see the Ximaxian magi (well the highest level ones anyway) as a little like the theoretical physicists of Santharia. They are the ones trying to come up with explanations for how the world works (but their ideas are based on philosophy rather than mathematics). However, I do not expect them to be the ones who come up with things like the Theory of Evolution or plate tectonics (which might not even be possible within Caelereth anyway, but that's besides the point).


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Artimidor Federkiel

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Re: Medicine timeline

« Reply #11 on: 22 January 2007, 17:50:36 »

We have a detailed sketch of a mermaid dissection already on the site - so yes, it seems to have been done in Santharia.


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Ta'lia of the Seven Jewels

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Re: Medicine timeline

« Reply #12 on: 22 January 2007, 21:45:47 »

That is another strange race which is not as sentient as humans and elves are and so I think you can't say much about how humans, elves and other races think about it. I could well imagine, that elves won't do it and rely on other healing methods, that it is for them a way far to crude, not fitting in the harmony of the world.

But that are only my two sans.


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Kelancey the Green

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Re: Medicine timeline

« Reply #13 on: 23 January 2007, 02:59:44 »

Oh, wow!

Most humble and sincere THANKS!!! to everyone who has responded.

Okay, it seems Ximax is *an* authority on philosophical, scholarly, and archival discipline, if not the leading authority in these matters. In this task, I'd rather leave the magical disciplines to those who know what they're doing, and I'll just add to the outline of the body of knowledge which falls strictly in the medical realm. In doing so, this is not intended to preclude magic nor clerical magic from healing arts--I'll restrict this forum to just the non-magical element of healing.

Further, I'd like to start small(-ish) in scope, and only address what's been developed in Santharia as of the current date. I would concede that much of medieval European philosophy about medicine borrowed much from the fields of astrology, numerology, alchemistry, and herbalism; to this end, I'll be careful not to step on anyone's toes in affiliating mundane (non-magical) medical knowledge with these fields of study.

If gunpowder isn't developed yet (or cannot be developed), then, Talia, would you object if I used your suggested frame of reference as a rough guideline--equating what's know in present-day Santharia would be similar to the practice of medicine in 14th century Germany? Realizing, of course, that two distinct worlds are bound to have disparities and arenas which cannot be compared, it nonetheless seems an apt comparison to propose that what's known in modern-era Santharia could roughly equate to the accumulated and accepted practices of medicine in Germany in the 1300's, at least on some level. At least that gives some endpoint by which to chronicle advancement in this field.

Too many words, sorry. I'll try to make my future posts more succinct. Thanks, everyone!


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Drasil Razorfang

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Re: Medicine timeline

« Reply #14 on: 23 January 2007, 03:44:08 »

I think it might be difficult to create a medicine timeline without the use of magical progressions in the field as they will most likely be the marvels that show progression. Therefore, since you do not feel capable of recording the magical aspects, might I suggest that you tweak the project slightly? Perhaps, instead of starting off creating a magical timeline, you could create more of an encyclopedia. To start off, you could provide "Clancy's Little Book of Herbs" with a Misc entry, describing it overall(i.e what it contains ect) and how it was developed by you. Then, once this is complete, you could actually "fill out" the pages of your book, enabling you to go into specifics in certain areas while being broader in others for more knowledgable folk to help fill in.

Seeing as you are most intersted in the herbal and rural forms of medicine, you could start out by creating an extensive list of ALL the herbs in Santharia (and then some if you are feeling inspired and wish to continue with this project and dev some medicinal plants) and many forms of rural medicine and practices (such as superstitions, folk practices[like how the Native Americans would use noise and such to scare out the "demons" making a person sick] or procedures (such as how to sucessfully complete an operation or set a broken leg.) Once done with this, you could also branch out into making a list of minerals, beast parts and the like and writing how they are used.

And, to tie in your timeline idea, you could do a series of small timelines, one for each "chapter" of your book. For example, once you finish writing out all your information on herbs, or rural medicine you could then draw up a timeline to show various discoveries and progressions. Once each of these smaller timelines is complete (and you gain assistance in fleshing out the areas that you don't feel qualified to write about) you could smush all the timelines together to make one, big, super timeline that could then be added as an overview entry to the Compendium.


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