Ateneo - UPO

This course presents the development of the interpretation of disease, its prevention and its treatment from prehistoric and ancient times to present days.

-ZANOBIO B.-ARMOCIDA G., Storia della Medicina, Milano, Masson
-COSMACINI G., Storia della medicina e della sanità in Italia, Bari, Laterza

The course will consider the following subjects:
• historical evolution of the concept of medicine and disease from ancient times to the present day
• understanding of the methodological path that led to the introduction of the experimental method in medical sciences;
• Origin and evolution of diagnostics and treatment of diseases
• origin and definition of the different branches of Medicine and Surgery

The student needs a general historical background, as that acquired in pre-university education, and the biomedical information acquired in the previous years of the Medical School

Lectures in class and visits to two historical museums of the University of Turin : The Museum of Anatomy and the Museum Lombroso. The students are invited to active discussion.

Written examination focused on the topics covered in the class and at the museums

The course will cover the following topics
• Medicine in prehistory
• Greco-Roman medicine
• Arabian medicine in the middle ages
• Medicine in the European middle ages:
• Medicine in the Renaissance;
o 16th Century anatomy ;
o 16th Century surgery
o The quantitative method in medicine: iatromechanics and iatrochemistry;
• Medicine and Surgery in the Seventeen Century;
o Anatomy and Physiology;
o Morgagni, the founder of anatomical pathology;
o vitalism;
o vaccines;
o the origin of clinical medicine.
• The Nineteen Century:
o The germ theory of disease
o Genetics;
o Histology and Pathology;
o Development of surgery: anesthesia, antisepsis, asepsis;
• The XX century
o Antimicrobial drugs and Antibiotics

The students will acquire general information on the history of Medicine, in particular, the history of disease and the development of the modern medicine