Outstanding People in the History of Medicine

 Imhotep

Time: 2667 BC – 2648 BC. Imhotep is the first known physician in history
through of written records. He belonged to the Third Dynasty of Ancient Egypt
and was the founder of ancient Egyptian medicine and the original author of
the Edwin Smith papyrus. The papyrus of Edwin Smith is considered as
the copy of several previous works and it is believed that it was written
around 1600 BC A text detailing cures, diseases, anatomical
observations, surgeries. It also describes in exquisite detail the
examination, diagnosis, treatment and prognosis of numerous

 
diseases.  

After his death, Imhotep was promoted to the status of God of Healing and his grave
became a health center. Of him facts were mentioned like that he was the son of the
God of the Creative Force and, later, the Greeks identified Imhotep with Aesculapius,
the God of the Measurement a.

 Hippocrates

Period: 460 BC – 370 BC. Possibly the most famous name in

medicine is that of the Greek philosopher Hippocrates. He is
considered the father of modern medicine and gives the name to
the Hippocratic Oath pronounced by those who have just
graduated from medicine.   

At that time, most people thought that diseases were a

punishment from the gods. The treatments were aimed at
satisfying the gods so that diseases could be cured. Hippocrates went against this
conventional thinking and considered the body as a balance of the famous four humors:
Blood, Phlegm, Black Bile, and Yellow Bile. If a person was sick, it means that there was
an imbalance in the moods and, therefore, had to receive treatment to restore balance.

 Aristotle
Period: 384 BC - 322 BC. Aristotle was a Greek philosopher
(son of a doctor) who wrote a large number of books on a
wide subject: Biology, anatomy, physics, philosophy, ethics
and politics. His work influenced the development of science
and medicine for centuries and is the founder of comparative
anatomy.

Aristotle developed a physiological system centered on the heart where the heart was

considered the most important organ because when the heart stopped, the body
died. Furthermore, in his embryology studies, Aristotle realized that the heart began to
beat in the earliest stages of the organism's development: (The first to be born, the last
to die). Much of medieval medicine was based on the principles of Aristoteles and those
of Hippocrates.

 Galen

Period: 129 AD - 200 AD. The Romans defeated the Greeks and

this made many of their ideas about health care spread
throughout the Roman Empire. Galen was a Greek physician
who emigrated to Rome and became the chief physician to many
professional gladiators. At that time, it was illegal to dissect
human bodies and, therefore, he dissected animals to find out
how they work. This knowledge helped Roman doctors to
improve their surgical techniques. They developed new
instruments and much of the knowledge they gained was from treating the wounded in
the numerous conquest wars the Romans waged.
 

 Abd Allah ibn Sina (Avicenna)

Period: 980 AD - 1037 AD. Better known as Avicenna, he wrote

the most important medical book for centuries. His extensive and
famous work, called The Canon of Medicine , contained five
volumes detailing the composition of medicines, diagnosis of
diseases, general medicine and therapies.  

Avicenna is also credited with being the first to correctly

document the anatomy of the human eye. He argued that
tuberculosis was contagious, something the Europeans denied. He also described the
symptoms and complications of diabetes, various forms of facial paralysis. Furthermore,
he is believed to have been the inventor of the tracheostomy. 

 Andrés Vesalio and Leonardo Da Vinci

 Period: Between the XV century and the XVI

century. European medicine was still dominated by the
teachings of the Church, but doctors began to learn more
about the human body. They read books translated from
Arabic medical texts and began to study anatomy in a
scientific and systematic way.

Andrés Vesalio and Leonardo Da Vinci dissected human

bodies and made numerous anatomical illustrations. This
aided the understanding of the organs and systems of the
human body. The Church did not allow dissection because
the bodies were "God's creations" and should not be desecrated. So the bodies of
criminals or "sinners" were often used. Doctors learned anatomy by observing these
dissections. Sometimes the criminal was alive at the start of the event, as part of
the punishment. Andrés Vesalio and Leonardo Da Vinci, since both were involved in the
study of human anatomy.

 William Harvey

 Period: 1578-1657. William Harvey was an English physician

who correctly described, for the first time, the properties of blood
being pumped through the body by the heart, in addition to
distinguishing arteries and veins. Thus rejecting once and for all
the theories of the classics.

Among the numerous studies, his careful observations on

vivisections in the human body through controlled experiments
stand out, being the first person to study biology quantitatively. He did an experiment to
see how blood passed through the heart each day. With that experiment he estimated
the capacity of the heart, how much blood is expelled in each beat and the number of
times the heart beats in half an hour. He distinguished the pulmonary circulation from
the systemic circulation and described the presence of valves in the veins.

 Edward Jenner

 Period: 1749-1823. Jenner worked as a doctor in

England. Smallpox was a serious disease in its day and often
fatal. It was the simple observation that milkmaids usually did not
catch smallpox that led him to believe that being infected with
smallpox (a disease similar to smallpox, but much less aggressive)
protected them from it.
In May 1796, Jenner tested this theory by inoculating James Phipps, a boy, with the
contents of the smallpox ampoules in both arms. This produced a fever and some
discomfort but not a great illness. Something he checked multiple times before publicly
reporting it. This is how Jenner discovered the vaccine.

 Florence Nightingale

Period: 1820 - 1910. Perhaps the most famous nurse of

all time. Nightingale decided to pursue nursing. This decision
also involved fighting against the established roles as
women that had been assigned to her. Against his family, and
especially his mother, he announced his decision in 1845 and
rejected the fiancé who had been assigned to him.

Florence Nightingale worked in a military hospital during the

Crimean War. Conditions were appalling and 80% of the soldiers died from infections
they caught in the hospital and not from the original wounds. Florence Nightingale
improved the quality of hygiene and health services, dramatically reducing infections in
her hospital (mortality fell from 40% to 2%). When she returned from the war, Florence
Nightingale embarked on a campaign to modernize and improve hospitals. She
promoted the nursing profession as we know it today and founded a school.

 Louis Pasteur

Period: 1822 - 1895. Louis Pasteur was a French chemist and

biologist who founded the science of microbiology. He began by
investigating the fermentation processes of wine and beer and
discovered the existence of bacteria that interfere in this
process. He applied his conclusions to the study of the cause and
development of diseases and demonstrated the theory of germs as
the cause of them. He also developed several types of effective
vaccines in animals and the rabies vaccine in humans.
He was the creator of pasteurization, a process by which, through the application of heat
for a short period of time, the microorganisms died without the food in which they were
found being damaged in the process.

 Robert Koch

 Period: 1843 - 1910. German doctor, he was together with Pasteur,

one of the defenders of the theory of germs as causing disease. He
discovered the Tuberculosis bacillus, also called Koch's bacillus in
honor of him. He unknowingly developed a method to diagnose
tuberculosis, tuberculin. A fact that he considered at first a failure
since his idea was that the tuber function as a vaccine. He
also discovered the cholera-causing bacillus. And he formulated four
postulates on the cause of bacterial diseases and demonstrated the
existence of various bacteria that cause wound infection.

 Joseph Lister

Period: 1827-1912. Joseph Lister was an English surgeon who

promoted the idea of sterile surgery while working at the Royal
Infirmary in Glasgow. In his day, the explanation for wound infection
was that exposed tissues were damaged by chemicals in the air or
by "pollution" in the air.

Lister, through reading Pasteur's articles, concluded that the only

viable way to combat microorganisms was through chemical
compounds. So he successfully introduced carbolic acid (phenol) to sterilize surgical
instruments and to clean wounds. This caused infections and gangrene to decrease
dramatically. He also had surgeons wear clean gloves and wash their hands before and
after operations with 5% carbolic acid solutions.