Early Medicine Stage 5 Comp - Comprehension Pack.pdf

STAGE 5 Unit focus: Illness and Medicine Text focus: Information Text Early Medicine At some point in our lives, we will all need medicine of some type. Whether it’s paracetamol to lower a fever, an anti-inflammatory to help with aches and pains or antibiotics to fight off an infection, we are all re...

STAGE 5 Unit focus: Illness and Medicine Text focus: Information Text Early Medicine At some point in our lives, we will all need medicine of some type. Whether it’s paracetamol to lower a fever, an anti-inflammatory to help with aches and pains or antibiotics to fight off an infection, we are all reliant on advances in medicine that have taken thousands of years to develop. You don’t have to travel very far back in time to realise just how much worse off you would have been with even the most common of afflictions. The Four Humours The Ancient Greeks were intelligent in many ways, but they didn’t always get it right. Aristotle was the first person to suggest the idea of the “four humours”, and Hippocrates took it even further. The basic idea was that the body was made up of four “humours” which needed to be balanced to keep a person healthy. The humours were: yellow bile, black bile, phlegm and blood. If any of the humours was out of balance, it would lead to illness, or so it was believed for nearly 2,000 years. Even though the science behind it was wrong, this idea did lead doctors to look for symptoms to help diagnose a patient - the first time in history that people had done this. Bloodletting Bloodletting involves cutting a person to allow a quantity of their blood to escape. The thinking for hundreds of years was that this would balance the four humours of the body. More often than not, it would simply leave the person too weak to fight off whatever was making them ill in the first place. Sometimes, it caused them to pass out, which wasn’t always the worst thing if they were about to undergo surgery. Even as recently as the 1920s, doctors were still using this method to “help” with heart issues. Painful surgery Nowadays, if you have to undergo a painful procedure or operation, you will be offered anaesthetic. It might be local that just numbs an area or general which makes you unconscious. Until the 1840s, there were no anaesthetics. Instead, people had to be given drugs called opiates to help with the pain. However, they were incredibly dangerous and not very effective anyway. The only hope that most people had to relieve the pain was to pass out during the operation. As they often lost a lot of blood, this was quite a likely outcome, although not a very safe one. all resources ©2020 Literacy Shed http://www.literacyshedplus.com You would think, then, that when anaesthetics were invented in the 1840s, people’s pain would be helped. Unfortunately, doctors hadn’t yet realised that dirt caused infections. Because surgery was now less painful, doctors performed it a lot more often, but rarely cleaned their equipment or washed their hands. In fact, people probably experienced a lot more pain after surgery because of infections and illness than they did before anaesthetics. Nothing shows this more than the fact that the United States’ President James Garfield was shot in 1881. He didn’t die from the gunshot, but from an infection after the doctors rummaged around to find the bullet with filthy hands. No antibiotics Antibiotics are wonderful medicines. They destroy bacteria and help to prevent the spread of many illnesses that would otherwise be deadly. If you cut a finger and don’t clean it properly, you are likely to get a mild infection. With modern antibiotics, that isn’t a problem, and it can be dealt with easily. Before the invention of antibiotics in the 20th century, the outcome might have been very different. People didn’t keep themselves clean anyway as they had no idea that dirt caused illness, so any wound, however small was likely to get infected. Many diseases that were once deadly, such as tuberculosis and the plague, can now be treated effectively with antibiotics. However, this won’t last forever. Many bacteria are becoming immune to our drugs, and we aren’t in a rush to develop any more. That’s why it’s important that we only use antibiotics when there is no other option. RETRIEVAL FOCUS 1. What might we take to lower a fever? 2. What were the Four Humours? 3. How might a doctor have tried to balance your humours? 4. What can help to avoid pain during a modern operation? 5. Which famous person was shot in 1881? V S I V S VIPERS QUESTIONS What is an “affliction”? Why did the invention of anaesthetics lead to more pain for patients? Why might somebody have preferred to undergo bloodletting before an operation? Which word in the text means “went through”? How might a paper cut have been deadly in the past? all resources ©2020 Literacy Shed http://www.literacyshedplus.com