Enrollment year
2021/2022
Academic discipline
MED/02 (HISTORY OF MEDICINE)
Department
DEPARTMENT OF MOLECULAR MEDICINE
Course
MEDICINE AND SURGERY (IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE) (ENGLISH LANGUAGE)
Curriculum
PERCORSO COMUNE
Period
1st semester (04/10/2021 - 14/01/2022)
Lesson hours
8 lesson hours
Activity type
WRITTEN TEST
Prerequisites
High school historical and scientific notions
Learning outcomes
The course of history of medicine will consider some significant turning points of the past of medicine to understand the present, explaining the process of transmission of mainly Western medical knowledge. Particular emphasis will be placed on the evolution of the concept of disease by analyzing in detail some basic conceptual articulations that are found at the origins of contemporary biomedicine.
These conceptual coordinates are proposed in order to provide students with the ability to perceive medicine and health, in all its ramifications, as a "process" historically changeable, to make them critically aware of the special dimension of knowledge and medical practice in the history and in the contemporary age.
In the course it will be given particular prominence in an ongoing confrontation with prejudices, uncritical and automatic intellectual fideistic beliefs that characterize the common perception of contemporary medicine, not so infrequently even among medical doctors.
Course contents
What is medicine? An introduction. Methodologial aspects. Chinese medicine. Greek medicine: Hippocrates and Galen. Roman medicine. Medieval medicine.
Renaissance: Vesalius, Leonardo Da vinci. The discovery of blood circulation: William Harvey.
the birth of microscopy. The evolution of the concept of pathology. The microbiological theory of infectious diseases. Vaccination. Antisepsis. The discovery of antibiotics. Recent developments.
Teaching methods
Lessons.
Practical aspects: visit to the Historical Museum of the University of Pavia.
Reccomended or required readings
Lecture notes Prof.s Paolo Mazzarello and Valentina Cani at: file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/Mazzarello/Documenti/Downloads/930003938Prof.Mazzarello.%20(3).pdf
Assessment methods
Multiple choice and gap-filling tests
Further information
Nothing
Sustainable development goals - Agenda 2030
Università di Pavia - Offerta formativa