Course syllabus - Course topics:

1. Definition and importance of the history of medicine, introduction to the study of contemporary medicine; History of Medicine over time in Romania.

2. Primitive and archaic medicine: traditional medicine: medicine in Mesopotamia, Egypt, India, China. Ancient medicine in Greece, the age of Hippocrates.

3. Medicine in Ancient Rome, the age of Galenus. Medicine in pre- and post-Roman Dacia. Indigenous elements of traditional medicine. Greek and Roman influences.

4. Medicine in the Middle Ages: medicine in the Christian world; the first hospitals and schools of medicine (Salerno, Bologna, Montpellier).

5. Islamic medicine; the contribution of personalities from the Arab world to the development of medicine (Ibn Sina-Avicenna, Al Rhazi-Razes, Abulcassis, Maimonides). Contribution of Islamic medicine to the European Renaissance.

6. Medicine in the Renaissance: key figures in the progress of medical sciences (Andreas Vesalius, Jean Fernel, Ambroise Paré, Paracelsus, Girolamo Fracastoro).

7. Medicine in the 17th century: personalities who contributed to the development of medicine (William Harvey, van Helmont; Santorius, Borelli; Leeuwenhoek, Marcello Malpighi).

8. Medicine in the 18th century: the first clinicians (Thomas Sydenham, Herman Boerhaave) and the development of social medicine (Bernardino Ramazzini). Medicine in the Romanian Countries in the 17th and 18th centuries.

9. Enlightenment medicine at the crossroads of the 18th and 19th centuries: outstanding personalities and their contribution to the development of new medical doctrines and systems: pathological anatomy and the birth of clinical medicine (Giovanni Battista Morgagni, Leopold Auenbrugger, Nicolas Corvisat, René Laënnec, Xavier Bichat); the anatomo-clinical method; the main medical schools (Italian, Dutch, French, Austrian, English); development of the first vaccine: antivarials (Jacob Pylarino, Emmanuel Timoni, Eduard Jenner); emergence of a new therapeutic perspective: prophylactic and curative; humanisation of the treatment of the hospitalised mental patient (William Tuke, Vincenzo Chiarugi, Philippe Pinel).

10. Medicine in the 19th century: time of new discoveries; personalities who contributed to: the birth of bacteriology (Louis Pasteur, Robert Koch); the progress of surgery through the introduction of new asepsis and antisepsis measures (Semmelweis, Lister); the introduction and development of anaesthesia techniques (Long, Morton, Wells, Simpson, Snow, Pirogov). Medicine in Romania in the 19th century.

11. Formulation of cellular theory (Schleiden and Schwann) and the foundations of cellular pathology (Rudolf Virchow); development of anatomo-clinical and bacteriological medicine; experimental medicine and modern physiology (Claude Bernard, Etienne Jules Marey): study of the constancy of the internal environment; first graphic recordings of electrical activity.

12. Medicine in the 20th century: outstanding personalities and their contribution to the emergence of: radiology (Konrad Röntgen), nuclear medicine (Henri Becquerel, Pierre and Marie Curie, Irène and Frédéric Joliot Curie); electrophysiology (W. Einthoven, H. Berger); psychiatry and neurology (J.M. Charcot); psychoanalysis (Sigmund Freud).

13. The first antibiotics and the beginning of the antibiotic era (A. Fleming); development of new fields: cell biology (George Emil Palade); molecular genetics (James Watson, Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins, François Jacob, André Lwoff and Jacques Monod); immunology, cell and tissue cultures, the first transplants and grafts, regenerative and reparative medicine, biomedical engineering and nanomedicine. Romanian contribution to the development of 20th century medicine.

14. Outstanding personalities in Romanian medicine (C. Davila, V. Babes, Gh. Marinescu, I. Hațieganu, N.C. Paulescu, C.I. Parhon, D. Danielopolu, A. Aslan, G.E. Palade).

Practical works:

1. Historical-medical research. The human being as a subject of knowledge of the soul and the body; magical, hieratic and empirical medicine; early medical practices and treatments: herbal preparations and trepanations.

2. Beliefs and traditions of Romanian folk medicine - ethnoiatry; development of scientific medicine over time in the Romanian area.

3. Hippocratic writings: Hippocratic Oath; development of medicine based on observation and logical reasoning.

4. Traditional, complementary and/or alternative medicine: homeopathy, acupuncture, medical yoga, etc. Current aspects of traditional medicine.

5. Pre- and post-Roman medicine and civilisation of the Geto-Dacians; first sanitation systems and first therapeutic measures; role of nutrition: honey and beeswax, role of medicinal plants, mineral and thermal waters. Greek and Roman influences on medical sciences in Dacia.

6. Christian medicine in Romania; the first monasteries-hospitals; the role of the church in the care of the sick. Medical arts in the Renaissance.

7. The role of scientific and technical discoveries in the development of medicine and biological sciences. Ethical aspects of medicine from ancient society to contemporary society.

8. Claude Bernard: the concept of experimental medicine and the constancy of the internal environment; vivisection and the ethics of medical research. Evidence-based medicine.

9. Medicine throughout the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries; the importance of Louis Pasteur's discoveries in the new era of medicine; current debates in immunology and vaccinology.

10. Medical imaging and radioactivity, from X-rays to nuclear medicine: Konrad Röntgen, Henri Bécquerel, Pierre and Marie Curie. Graphic records and statistical processing in medicine.

11. Naturalism today: sanogenetic medicine; nutrients and nutrigenomics; bio therapies; genetically modified foods; hydrotherapy and gymnastics.

12. Personalities who contributed to the development of Romanian medicine in the 19th and 20th centuries. The first Romanian medical publications.

13. Nobel Prize winners in Medicine and Physiology.

14. A brief history of Pandemics and their impact on human society.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Bologa V, History of Universal Medicine, Medical Publishing, Bucharest, 1970.

2. Iftimovici R, Universal history of medicine and pharmacy, Ed. Academiei, Bucharest, 2008.