Physicians, Plagues and Progress: The History of Western medicine from Antiquity to Antibiotics

Since the dawn of time, man has sought to improve his health and that of his neighbour. The human race, around the world, has been on a long and complex journey, seeking to find out how our bodies work, and what heals them. Embarking on a four-thousand-year odyssey, science historian Allan Chapman brings to life the origin and development of medicine and surgery. Writing with pace and rigorous accuracy, he investigates how we have battled against injury and disease, and provides a gripping and highly readable account of the various victories and discoveries along the way. Drawing on sources from across Europe and beyond, Chapman discusses the huge contributions to medicine made by the Greeks, the Romans, the early medieval Arabs, and above all by Western Christendom, looking at how experiment, discovery, and improving technology impact upon one another to produce progress. This is a fascinating, insightful read, enlivened with many colourful characters and memorable stories of inspired experimenters, theatrical surgeons, student pranks, body-snatchers, 'mad-doctors', quacks, and charitable benefactors.

Table of Contents:
Contents List of illustrations XVII Acknowledgments XXI Preface XXVI 1 Physicians, Priests, and Folk Healers 1 Ancient doctors 2 Medicine in Egypt and other ancient cultures 5 Moses and the lepers: A saga from Sinai to Scandinavia 9 Hippocrates of Cos: Rational medicine, ethics, and the Oath of c. 430 BC 12 Aristotle (384–322 BC) and the nature of living things 15 2 Galen: Surgeon to the Gladiators 19 Aelius Claudius Galenus of Pergamum: Surgeon, showman, and public anatomist, AD 129–200/216 20 Galen the anatomist and physiologist 22 Galen’s physiology 24 Roman surgery 27 Celsus and his Encyclopedia of c. AD 30 31 Galen’s infl uence: Medicine, ethics, religion, and teaching across fi fteen centuries 35 3 Arabia: The First Fruits of Medieval Medicine 38 Baghdad and The House of Wisdom 39 Fire and water: Transformative forces 40 Jabir (Geber) and Rhazes: Chemistry and medicine 41 “I suppose that Avycen /Wroot nevere in no canon…” (Chaucer) 47 Albucasis and Arabic surgery 49 Arabic medicine in retrospect 52 4 Divine Light: Seeing and Perceiving in the Middle Ages 55 The anatomy of perception: What was “seeing” believed to be? 56 Rainbows, colours, and perspective: Medieval Europe’s new key to physics 61 Unravelling the colours of the rainbow: Medieval Europe’s great discovery 64 Spectacles: The invention that changed the world 67 Couching for cataract: Albucasis and medieval eye surgery 69 The eye as an optical projector 72 5 Rahere the Jester Meets St Bartholomew 73 Early medieval care: Leech books and herbals 74 Salerno, near Naples: Europe’s fi rst hospital and medical school 77 The founding of St Bartholomew’s Hospital in twelfth-century London 82 Cure of body and cure of soul: How clean were medieval people? 89 6 Spiritual Inspiration, Miracle, Possession, Mental Illness, and the Brain 94 Discerning clinical illness from spiritual states 94 Epilepsy and the Hippocratic tradition in medieval Europe 98 Cells, chambers, and fl uid fl ows: The medieval explanation for brain function 102 Margery Kempe (née Burnham or Brunham) and religious visionaries 108 “Bedlam”: A place of asylum for the distressed? 111 7 In Time of Plague 113 Epidemics: Sin, nature, and the plague of the Philistines 114 The Black Death of 1347 and beyond 115 A miscellany of medieval maladies 124 8 Medicine and Surgery in High Medieval Europe, 1200–1500, Part 1: Medicine and Anatomy in Europe’s Medieval Universities and Beyond 129 Population growth, prosperity, and innovation 130 Teaching anatomy, challenging myth, and the status of experimental knowledge 132 Pus: Laudable or a liability? 135 Theodoric Borgognoni of Lucca: Surgeon, hygienist, friar, and bishop 136 The fi rst academic medical schools: A European innovation 138 Mondino de Liuzzi of Bologna and his Anathomia 140 9 Medicine and Surgery in High Medieval Europe, 1200–1500, Part 2: Guy de Chauliac and the Great Surgery of 1363 147 A scientifi c physician at the papal court in Avignon 147 Chirurgia Magna, or the “Great Surgery”: A medical encyclopedia for future ages 149 Guy de Chauliac: Victim, survivor, and student of the bubonic plague 154 So was medieval surgery barbaric? 154 10 Prince Hal and the Surgeons: The Rise of Medical Professionalism in England after 1300 158 John of Arderne: Master surgeon of the age of Chaucer 159 An unfortunate incident of an arrow in the face 161 Towton Man: Sophisticated facial repair surgery in early fi fteenth-century England 163 The anonymous surgeon of HMS Mary Rose in 1545 165 Gunpowder, God, and Europe’s surgical renaissance 167 The Royal College of Physicians and the Worshipful Company of Barbers and Surgeons 170 11 Antiquity Found Wanting in Renaissance Italy: Andreas Vesalius and His Infl uence 174 Renaissance Italy and the “lesser circulation” of the blood: Andreas Vesalius, Padua, and the new anatomy of the Renaissance 176 The art of the anatomical illustrator 178 Vesalius and his De Fabrica of 1543 181 Realdo Colombo, the Vesalian tradition, and the secrets of the heart 189 Ambrose Paré: Renaissance master surgeon 191 12 William Harvey and the Circulation of the Blood 195 Origins and education 197 Harvey establishes his professional career in London 199 Of hearts, paradoxes, and purposes: Harvey’s road to the blood circulation 201 Announcing the whole-body circulation of the blood in 1628 205 Therapeutic innovations around Harvey’s time 212 13 The Neurologist and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Part 1: The Oxford Experimental Club 217 The hanging of Anne Greene 218 Dr Thomas Willis of Oxford: Pioneer of neurology 222 Fermentation, fevers, and chemistry 228 Arthur Coga and the sheep: Experiments with blood and circulation 232 14 The Neurologist and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Part 2: Brains, Minds, and Souls in Seventeenth- Century England 236 The Reverend Robert Burton: Anatomist of Melancholy 236 Thomas Willis and his “circle” 240 Death by lightning in 1666 246 Fathoming the working of the mind in seventeenthcentury England 249 Archbishop Gilbert Sheldon, Doctor Willis, and the soul 254 15 Breathing and Burning: Cardiology, Chemistry, and Combustion 258 The breath of life 258 Dr John Mayow: Air, fi re, blood, and life tested in the laboratory 263 Robert Hooke and the dog 266 Richard Lower, Tractatus de Corde, and the foundation of cardiology 267 Oxford’s enterprising apothecaries 271 16 John Wesley’s Primitive Physick and the British Priest–Physician 274 The Reverend John Ward, MA: Experimentalist and Shakespeare anecdote collector 275 John Wesley and simple medicine for the common man 279 The country vicar who paved the way for aspirin 283 Stephen Hales, Sydney Smith, and other medical clergymen 285 17 The Duty of Care: New Hospitals, Charities, and Medical Innovation in the Eighteenth Century 289 A new tide of hospitals: London 290 New hospitals across Great Britain 294 The hospital as a “museum” of disease 298 Teachers and discoverers in the eighteenth-century hospitals 301 John Hunter FRS 304 18 “Remember Poor Tom ’o Bedlam”: Dealing with the “Mad” 307 “Poor Tom’s a-cold”: Helping the insane in Stuart and Georgian England 308 Mad-doctors and madhouses 310 The beginnings of compassionate care 311 The Reverend Dr Francis Willis and King George III 314 From scandal to care in York, and the rise of humane treatment 317 19 Charismatics, Quacks, and Folk Healers into the Early Industrial Age 322 Valentine Greatrakes: Irish gentleman faith healer 323 Bartholomew Fair and other fairground quacks 324 Learned quackery 327 Quacks, showmen, and doctors 329 Dover’s Powders and nostrums galore 336 Mesmerism and phrenology 337 20 Sewers, Soap, and Salvation: The Origins of Public Health 339 The Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus, FRS 340 From cow to human: Dr Edward Jenner and the impact of vaccination 342 Cholera 345 Sanitation, statistics, and the Broad Street pump 348 Dr John Snow and breakthrough at last 349 Sanitation, civil engineers, and salvation 350 21 “Them Damn’d Murderin’ Anatomists”: The Expanding Medical Schools and the Supply of Cadavers 354 The trade in “things” 355 How to snatch a “thing”: The practicalities of “resurrecting” 357 Edinburgh: The medical lion of the north 360 “True Murderin’ Anatomists”: The Burke and Hare scandal, Edinburgh, 1828 363 Dr Andrew Ure of Glasgow tries to raise the dead, 1818 365 Bishop and Head, the London “Burkers”, and the Anatomy Act 367 St Bernard’s, the Romance of a Medical Student, 1888 368 Finding bones: A postscript 371 22 The Miracle of the Microscope 372 Joseph Jackson Lister, FRS: Quaker, microscopist, and gentleman of science 375 Cells: Professor Virchow identifi es life’s building blocks 380 Understanding cancer 383 The French chemist and the German physician 386 23 Chemistry and the Control of Pain: Anaesthesia and Beyond 394 Chemical anaesthesia: 16 October 1846, Boston, USA 395 Chloroform: The Scottish wonder drug 401 Anaesthesia, childbirth, and the Bible 403 Dr John Snow: Founder of scientifi c anaesthesiology 404 Morphine, cocaine, and the hypodermic 405 Peaceful slumbers: New drugs to comfort and calm 407 24 Glasgow, 1865: Young Jimmy Greenlees Meets Professor Lister: Antiseptic Surgery and Beyond 410 Prelude: Vienna, 1847 411 Glasgow, August 1865 413 From antiseptic to aseptic surgery 416 The new surgery 417 The new operations 419 25 The New Professional Healer: The Medical and Nursing Professions Take Shape 424 The Medical Act of 1858 425 Homeopaths, water-curers, and Victorian alternative medicine 426 Nursing, the new medical profession: Sarah Podger, Mary Seacole, and Florence Nightingale 429 Sir William Osler on the new physicians 435 26 The Wonderful Century 437 The drugs that hit the spot 437 Penicillin and antibiotics 439 Cancer: Radiology, chemotherapy, and body scans 442 Adjusting the body’s own chemistry, physics, and engineering 446 Who am I? Scientifi c medicine and the soul 450 Conclusion: our modern duty of care 453 Appendix 1: Cataract Operation Performed by a Traditional Shaman Surgeon in a Village to the East of Agra, Northern India, c. 2010 457 Appendix 2: Stents and Tents 460 Notes 462 Further Reading 470 Index 505

About the Author :
Dr Allan Chapman is a historian of science at Oxford University, with special interests in the history of astronomy and of medicine and the relationship between science and Christianity. As well as University teaching, he lectures widely, has written a dozen books and numerous academic articles, and written and presented two TV series, Gods in the Sky and Great Scientists, besides taking part in many other history of science TVdocumentaries and in The Sky at Night with Sir Patrick Moore. He has received honorary doctorates and awards from the Universities of Central Lancashire, Salford, and Lancaster, and in 2015 was presented with the Jackson-Gwilt Medal by the Royal Astronomical Society. Among his books are Slaying the Dragons. Destroying Myths in the History of Science and Faith (Lion Hudson, 2013), Stargazers: Copernicus, Galileo, the Telescope,and the Church. The Astronomical Renaissance, 1500-1700 (Lion, 2014), and Physicians, Plagues, and Progress. The History of Western Medicine from Antiquity to Antibiotics (Lion, 2016). He is also the author of thescientific biographies England's Leonardo. Robert Hooke and the Seventeenth-Century Scientific Revolution (Institute of Physics, 2005), Mary Somerville and the World of Science (Canopus, 2004; Springer, 2015), and The Victorian Amateur Astronomer. Independent Astronomical Research in Britain, 1820-1920 (Wiley-Praxis, 1998; revised edn. Gracewing, 2017).

Review :
"Using clarity of structure and a warm, engaging style, Allan Chapman brings us an elegant and accessible new introduction to the history of Western medicine." - Caroline Rance "This is medical history for the layman - and very good it is, too. Chapman's coverage is, as we have come to expect, comprehensive, covering everything that has contributed to the knowledge and treatment of physical and mental disorders. Highly recommended." - Derek Wilson "This thoroughly enjoyable book provides a comprehensive and highly compelling account of the way in which the pioneers of western medicine have, with equal measures of luck and judgement, driven its development from what was once no more than glorified sorcery to its current place as an established cutting edge science." - Dr Simon Atkins "This is a fascinating and comprehensive tour of the history of medicine and health care from prehistory to the modern world. This detailed overview of thousands of years of medical history is constantly brought to life through fascinating and arresting examples. It also reveals the complex interaction of different religious and scientific concepts and outlooks across time, and the role of technological advance in making progress possible. In each stage of the development of medical practice we are led to see how it interacted with the wider social context of the time and the mind-sets of those involved. Fast-paced, insightful and engaging." - Martyn Whittock