Medical Practices in History

Medical Practice of the 18th and 19th Centuries
Medicine has been a changing interaction between bodies (anatomy), patients, healers, and disease. (Kavey). Experiments as well as medical practices included bleeding, the use of leeches, amputation, herbal cures, counter thorn cures, etc. Despite the quackery, these medical practices of the 18th and 19th centuries, save in journals belonging to scientists, revolutionized the modern medical world.
Since Ancient capital of Italy and Greece ruled the European continent to early care for in England and Great Britain, it was believed the body was made up of the Four Humors. This musical theme originated from Galen who believed: the importance of maintaining balance between the four bodily fluids, or humors: blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. Each fluid was associated with a special(prenominal) personality characteristic. Blood was associated with a sanguine personality, that is laughter, music, and a torrid disposition. Someone with a phlegmatic personality was sluggish and dull, turn yellow bile represented an individual quick to yellow bile or choleric (cholera meaning yellow as in yellow fever). Lastly, black bile represented a sombre or depressed personality, melan meaning black.



It was the job of the physician to have-to doe with harmony in those four humors by the use of emetics, cathartics, purgatives, and by bloodletting. (Bloodletting and the Four Humors).
Bloodletting, or bleeding, was used to reduce wasted circulation, to slow the pulse, and to reduce irritation, all felt to be the cause of inflammation. Dr. Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, was a major figure in colonial American medicine and was an important proponent of bleeding, though unfortunately he erroneously thought that the body held 12 instead of 6 quarts. unawares before his death, George Washington was bled 4 ‡ quarts in 24 hours for an infected throat and died not long after. (Bloodletting and the Four Humors). Rush...If you wish to get a full essay, order it on our website: Orderessay



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