A History of Medicine SECOND EDITION doc

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A History of Medicine SECOND EDITION doc

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[...]... ritual in terms of magical and practical elements, but for healer and patient there is no separation between the magical and empirical aspects of therapy In a society without writing or precise means of measuring drug concentrations and time intervals, strict attention to ritual may provide a means of standardizing treatment, as well as a reassuring atmosphere The shaman cannot isolate and secularize... means of natural selection According to Darwin, all the available evidence indicated that ‘‘man is descended from a hairy, tailed, quadruped, probably arboreal 1 2 A History of Medicine in its habits.’’ Despite the paucity of the evidence available to him, Darwin suggested that the ancient ancestor of modern human beings was related to that of the gorilla and the chimpanzee Moreover, he predicted that... primary source of paleopathological information Scientists can subject skeletal remains to X-rays, CT (computer tomographic) imaging, chemical analysis, and so forth The bones may reveal evidence about an individual’s history of health and disease, age and cause of death Chapter 1 Paleopathology and Paleomedicine 7 Specific injuries identifiable in ancient remains included fractures, dislocations, sprains,... dagger, a bow, a quiver made of animal skins, arrows, and articles for firemaking Because the axe and dagger were made of copper rather than bronze and his hair contained high levels of copper and arsenic, he might have been a coppersmith His clothing included skins from eight different animal species, including goat and deerskins, a cape made of woven grasses, shoes made of calf skin, and a bearskin hat Analysis... evidence—meager, fragmentary, and tantalizing though it often is—proves that disease is older than the human race and was not uncommon among other species Indeed, studies of ancient fossil remains, skeletons in museum collections, animals in zoos, and animals in the wild demonstrate that arthritis is widespread among a variety of medium and large-sized mammals, including aardvarks, anteaters, bears, and gazelles... bring about the desired reaction A prayer, in contrast, is an appeal for aid from a supernatural being who has the power to grant or deny the request In primitive medicine, the supernatural is involved in all aspects of disease and healing Because disease and misfortune are attributed to supernatural agents, magic is essential to the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of disease All events must have a. .. body, ancient bones rarely disclose the cause of death A hole in the skull, for example, might have been caused by a weapon, the bite of a large carnivore, postmortem damage caused by burrowing beetles, a ritual performed after death, or even a surgical operation known as trepanation A discussion of a Peruvian trepanned skull at the 1867 meeting of the Anthropological Society of Paris stimulated the search... superiority of scientific medicine has not caused the disappearance of all other systems of healing Yet traditional and alternative systems of medicine continue to flourish in America, Europe, Africa, China, India, and the Middle East On the other hand, traditional medicine has been influenced by modern theory and practice Today’s shaman may dispense both penicillin and incantations in order to combat both... interest because stagnant water, especially in irrigated fields, serves as a home for the snail that serves as the intermediate host for this disease The incidence of schistosomiasis in a population may, therefore, reflect ancient agricultural and sanitary practices Ancient artifacts provide a uniquely human source of pseudodiagnoses, because of the vagaries of fashion in the art world Without knowledge of the... availability of food sources When the idea of progress is subjected to critical analysis rather than accepted as inevitable, the causes of the Neolithic transformation are not as clear as previously assumed Given the fact that hunter-gatherers may enjoy a better diet and more leisure than agriculturalists, prehistoric or modern, the advantages of a settled way of life are obvious only to those who are already . chemical analysis, and so forth. The bones may reveal evidence about an individual’s history of health and disease, age and cause of death. 6 A History of Medicine Specific. and animals in the wild demonstrate that arthritis is widespread among a variety of medium and large-sized mammals, including aardvarks, anteaters, bears,

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