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Timeline of Medicine and Pubic Health
Ancient Times
• People thought spirits or gods
caused disease.
• Treatments for disease included folk
remedies, magic, some surgery, and
gifts to gods.
• Sekhet’eanach (Egyptian) may have
been the first doctor.
• Hippocrates (Greek doctor) stressed
the importance of fresh air, good
diet, and exercise for health.
Hippocrates is known as the Father
of Medicine. Doctors today still take
the Hippocratic Oath, which is a
code of practice.
• Indian doctors were first to perform
skin grafts and plastic surgery.
• 100 C.E.— Romans were first to
develop a public health system even
though they did not understand what
caused disease. They built a system
of aqueducts and filters to purify
water; a network of sewers to carry
away human waste; and public
toilets, baths, and fountains.
Middle Ages
Renaissance
(500 C.E. to 1400s)
• People in Europe began to
understand the connection between
sanitation and disease.
• beginning of public health
(1400s to 1700s)
• Scientists learned more about
communicable disease after the
invention of the microscope and
studies of human anatomy.
• development of the scientific
method
• 1200 — Women midwives
performed the first Caesarian
section, without the use of
anesthetics.
• 1350s — After the plague, laws
were passed to clean streets,
quarantine the sick, hire human- and
animal-waste collectors, build
public toilets, and ban dumping
chamber pots in the streets. The
laws were not well enforced.
• 1543 — Andreas Vesalius, a
Belgian doctor, established surgery
as a medical profession.
• 1545 — Ambroise Paré, a French
surgeon, sealed wounds and
amputated limbs with egg white,
turpentine, and rose oil. His method
was more successful and less painful
than the boiling oil or red-hot iron
used before.
• 1590s — Zacharias Janssen, a Dutch
lens maker, discovered how to
magnify objects by putting two
lenses together.
• 1616 — William Harvey, an English
doctor, discovered that the heart
pumps the blood around the body
and that blood in each blood vessel
travels only in one direction.
• 1660 — Anton van Leeuwenhoek, a
Dutch scientist, invented the first
compound microscope.
Timeline of Medicine and Pubic Health
Continued…
Industrial Revolution
Modern Times
(1780s to 1900)
• Scientists proved that pathogens cause disease.
• Many discoveries led to advances in medical treatment
and surgery.
• belief that individuals and churches were responsible for
public health
(1900s to present)
• general belief that governments need to protect people
from disease
• Many communicable diseases become treatable using
vaccines and antibiotics.
• Improved living conditions reduce the risk of
communicable disease in Canada.
• Public health measures stress protection and prevention
of communicable and non-communicable disease.
• many advances in medical and genetic research
• 1914 — Joseph Goldberger, an American doctor, proved
that poor diets were responsible for an epidemic of
pellagra, a disease that causes skin rashes, mouth sores,
diarrhea, and (if untreated) mental deterioration.
• 1918— The Spanish flu pandemic killed 21 million
people worldwide.
• 1919 — The Canadian government established a
department of health.
• 1922 — Scientists discovered that bacteria cause food
poisoning and that some bacteria can live without
oxygen.
• 1929 — Sir Alexander Fleming, a Scottish doctor,
discovered penicillium mould, resulting in the production
of penicillin antibiotic.
• 1930 — Karl Landsteiner, an Austrian scientist, received
the Nobel Prize for his discovery of the major blood
groups and the development of the system of blood
typing.
• 1949 — Percy Julian, an American scientist, developed
male and female hormones from soybeans to prevent
miscarriages in women. These are ancestors of modern
chemical birth control methods.
• 1950s — Jonas Salk, an American scientist, introduced a
vaccine to prevent polio.
• 1963 — Albert Sabin, born in Poland, developed the first
oral and lifelong vaccine for polio.
• 1972 — All Canadians have health plans that include
doctors’ services.
• 1981 — AIDS is officially recognized as a disease.
• 2003 — Scientists complete the entire DNA sequence of
the human genome.
• 1796 — Edward Jenner, a British doctor, gave the firstever vaccination — for smallpox.
• 1830s — Edwin Chadwick, an English public health
pioneer, challenged politicians to enforce public health
laws.
• 1853 — Smallpox vaccine became compulsory for
infants in Britain.
• 1857 — Louis Pasteur, a French scientist, proved that
germs cause disease.
• mid-1800s — Florence Nightingale reduced the death
rate of patients in hospitals by improving sanitary
conditions, improving water quality, and bandaging
wounds to prevent infections from spreading.
— Joseph Lister, an English surgeon, used
carbolic acid to kill pathogens on surfaces and on skin.
— Robert Koch, a German scientist,
identified the pathogens responsible for some diseases,
discovered that bacteria could spread from one person to
another, and developed techniques for studying and
culturing bacteria.
• 1895 — Wilhelm Roentgen, a German scientist,
developed X rays.