History of Medicine

BHMP MEU
North Sumatera University
2013
Big Picture Bioethics
Bioethics should be informed by
Medicine
Philosophy
Medical sociology
Medical anthropology
Economics
Political science
History
Central questions in
medicine
Why is my patient sick?
microbe / lesion
lifestyle
poverty
SES and health
politics

The history of medicine contains a vast tradition

in answering this question
History of
History of disease
Medicine
History of civilization
Epidemics (plague)
Diseases of civilization (hypertension, obesity)
History of human response to disease
Herbal medicine (jamu)
Healers
Physicians
History of medical knowledge; therapeutic
interventions
History of the medical profession; medical care
I. History of Disease
Improvement in health
Nutrition
Engineering
Sewers
Drinking water

Food (nutrition, disease carriers)

Conditions of work
Living
Medicine, physicians

McKeown thesis
Resource allocation
How best to fight disease
Medicine is not always the answer
II. Paradox of Medicine
1. SES and disease
The poor carry the greatest disease burden

2. Health care: spending mostly on less serious

diseases of higher SES groups
II. Medicine / Pharmacy
Trade, exchange, circulation
Importance of Asia
Arab and Chinese traders
India
China
Indonesia
Middle East
A blending of traditions
No East / West
Jamu
Bontius
Rumphius
Van Reede tot Drakensteyn
Knowledge from the East
taken to the West
Leyden: Boerhave
III. Medical
Rudolf Virchow
response to disease
Report on the Typhus
Epidemic in Upper
Silesia, 1848
Silesia: Polish
inhabitants, German
control
Recommendations:
Recommendations:
Polish as official language
Democratic self-government
Separation of church and state
Creation of agricultural cooperatives

Birth of social medicine

1846
Willem Bosch (founder
of Dokter Djawa school,
Batavia, 1851)
1846, report of an
epidemic in central
Java
Poverty, forced
cultivation system
Recommendation:
Abolish culture system
Train Indonesian physicians
Trouble with governor-general
Turned to politics
I have the same responsibility towards the
nation as I have to my patients 1851
The increase of Javas population and the welfare of the
Netherlands
Public health
I made a special study of the STOVIA (the medical
school for the natives). After all, most of those
promoting the awakening of Asia were doctors,
and not lawyers as was the case in Europe.
Perhaps the movements for enlightenment in
Europe were motivated by the violation of
peoples sense of justice. In Asia the awakening
was inflamed by the awareness that society was
sick and must be cured.

Pramoedya Ananta Toer, House of Glass [Vol. 4 or

the Buru Quartet], 1988.
Tirto Adi Suryo
Promise of modernity
Western medicine, Western
technology
Method: journalism
(Abdoel Moeis, Suwardi
Suryaningrat)
Soetomo
Education
Bank
Unions
Cipto Mangunkusumo
Turn to politics
Why?
Plague eradication campaign
Malang
Measures
Against Indonesians
No trouble for Belanda
Medicine
Disease
Health
Conditions of health
Biological

Social

Political

Conception of the good society

Conception of the place of medicine in society
 more
PERSEKIN: Perhimpunan Sejarah Kedoktoran
Indonesia (Indonesian Association of the
History of Medicine)
2-5 July 2012: IAHA, Solo
2-5 July 2012: HOMSEA (History of Medicine in
SE Asia), Solo