HIST 0286A Timeline

Out of Africa II

Period:

100,000 BCE

to

50,000 BCE

Movement of modern humans into Eurasia and beyond

Neolithic Revolution and emergence of cities

Period:

8,000 BCE

to

3,000 BCE

Rise of agriculture and domestication of crops

Period:

8,000 BCE

to

3,500 BCE

Domestication of bison and cattle

6,000 BCE

First Cuneiform tablets

3,200 BCE

Oldest writing system

Earliest medical papyri in Egypt

1,700 BCE

Hippocratic writings

Period:

-460 BCE

to

-370 BCE

Deemed that a physician's job is to give advice

Roman conquest of Greek world

Period:

-250 BCE

to

-150 BCE

Greek ideas (including medicine) gain prominence in Roman culture

Burning of books in China

-213 BCE

The exception was some practical books, but many ancient medical texts destroyed

Alexandrian Medicine; earliest versions of Caraka and Suśruta; Huang Di nei jing su wen appears

Period:

-200 BCE

to

-100 BCE

Galen; Caraka and Suśruta beginning to be quoted widely; Huang Di nei jing su wen being edited into final form; Daoism introduced in China

Period:

100

to

200

Buddhism flourishes in China

Period:

200

to

500

Later develops into Zen Buddhism

Avicenna’s Canon

1000

1st Islamic book on general medical theory, later influential in Europe

Revival of European medical learning; establishment of corporations and founding of early universities

Period:

1050

to

1100

Founding of municipal hospitals in cities

Period:

1100

to

1200

Shengji zonglu

Period:

1111

to

1117

Containing 20,000 prescriptions, including demonological
and astrological ones, and beginnings of “specialization” of learning

European witchcraft trials

Period:

1300

to 1600

Witchcraft arises as a charge in political trials, many witchcraft accusations entertained by judges until 17th century

Black Death strikes Europe for the first time

1348

Development of quarantine measures; economy became more labor based

Rise of Italian Renaissance

1350

First consumer revolution; rising literacy; return to purified Greco-Roman precedents; rise of medical humanism; careful attention to diseases and anatomy

Malleus Malificarum

1486

Published to refute those who don’t believe in witchcraft; made out many midwives to be witches

Paracelsus/Paracelsian medicine

Period:

1493

to

1541

Advocate for use of specific drugs for cures; shifted focus of alchemy to the development of new drugs in later centuries

Europeans gain new remedies and goods such as China root and ginseng from Asia; Columbian exchange of plants, animals, medicines, disease, and slave labor between Old and New World

Period:

1500

to 1600

Rise of the mechanical body

1600

Alignment of philosophical materialism and commercial materialism and setting aside questions of spirit, soul, etc. in medicine

Midwifery becomes more formal

Period: 1600 to 1700

Licenses required; many informational books emerge; guilds established; rise of male-midwife (typically barber-surgeons)

De motu cordis et sanguinis

1628

Harvey explored anatomy and physiology; recognized circulation of blood; challenged fundamental assumptions on how the body worked as well as dietetics; shifted emphasis of medicine from
preserving health to restoring health

Warring in Japan

Period: 1633 to 1639

Expulsion of missionaries and Christians; beginning of Japan’s search for their own style of learning (Chinese foundations, newfound interest in European learning)

Rise of medical advertising and patent medicine

1650

Medicine becoming more and more commercial