Prehistoric Medicine
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Prehistoric Medicine is a term applied to the use and development of medicine before the invention of writing (see Prehistoric for a definition of the time period). Because writing was invented at different times in different places, the term Prehistoric Medicine encompasses a large number of time periods and dates. Many peoples across the world, from which evidence on this subject has been gathered, still live in a similar type of society to Prehistoric Times and maintain similar beliefs and treatments of diseases.
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[edit] Beliefs & Ideas
[edit] Supernatural
Prehistoric Man believed in both Supernatural causes and cures for diseases, beliefs which would continue in part to be used by the Ancient Civilisations (see Medicine in ancient Rome, Ancient Egyptian medicine, Ancient Greek medicine). They blamed the diseases on the gods or evil spirits because they did not understand them.
[edit] Natural
Whilst they did not understand the causes of diseases, they could tell what caused injuries. They did not blame them on evil spirits or the gods because they could see with their own eyes what caused them. If someone became injured after falling from a great height they knew that the injury was caused by the falling. As a result of this, curing injuries was a lot more successful than diseases (see below).
[edit] Cures for Diseases
[edit] Herbs
Herbs were one of the only treatments for diseases in Prehistoric Medicine. They would have been dispensed by Medicine Men or by women; women usually looked after the health of their family. Herbs have remained an important cure for diseases throughout history, despite the advancement of other cures and techniques.Because of the fact that herbs will rot away in most conditions and because no written notes could have been made about them or their uses, historians are unlikely ever to know exactly which herbs were used in Prehistoric Medicine. Of course an idea of which herbs they used can be obtained by looking at the area in which the Prehistoric Tribes lived in and the herbs that grow there naturally; unlike the Ancient Civilisations who were able to transport and trade herbs from across their and others empires, Prehistoric Man would have relied on local herbs, unless of course they were nomadic, in which case they would have moved settlements and may have been able to gather them from further afeild.
[edit] Trepanning
Trepanning is the process which involves the removal of evil spirits from a person's skull by a drill. It was used to cure certain conditions such as headaches. Despite it being a very dangerous procedure to carry out (if the drill went into the brain then the patient would have died) there is evidence that many people survived it; skeletons have been recovered showing signs that the bone tissue surrounding the hole has partially grown back. Trepanning is one of the few surgical operations that would have been carried out in Prehistoric Times. Though it is unlikely that it was beneficial for the patient, modern experiments have suggested that it may actually have been able to increase brain activity by reducing pressure in the skull, of course this was an unintentional side effect of the procedure.
[edit] Magic & Medicine Men
Medicine Men (or witch-doctors) would have looked after the health of their tribe, gathering herbs, performing surgical procedures (see above), providing medical advice and supernatural treatments, such as charms, spells and amulets to ward off evil spirits [1]. As they would not have recieved any formal training in medicine (as there was no writing), it is likely that any knowledge would have been passed down orally.
