24.6.13

Hello again! So, AS exams have finished and I'm progressing further with the project. However I had much less time than I thought I would to work on my project due to extreme revision, and I have decided to aim for the October deadline to give me more time for the project. So far I have researched Hippocrates and Ancient Egypt (as I specified in my target - see previous post) and have a very clear idea of how I will structure my project; starting with Egypt, then Greece and finally the Roman Empire. For each section I will include a person who I consider to be a crucial figure in medicine, for example Imhotep, an ancient Egyptian physician. My target for next week will be to complete the admin 'PPR' and to reach 1,000 words on my dissertation.

15.4.13

Since my last post, a lot of my time has been spent revising for my AS exams, however I have managed to achieve a few of my objectives:
~I have gathered materials for research - one particular book has been useful; The Hamlyn History of Medicine.
~I have identified key issues I would like to write about; firstly obstetrics and midwifery in the ancient world (as birth and difficulties with birth are truly ancient and universal issues); secondly the anceint greek beliefs about the four humours (It should be noted that these beliefs lasted right into the eighteenth century, and it would be interesting to see whether, despite the objections we take at face value, there might be any basis to the ideas.); thirdly the implications that the climates of Ancient Greece, Rome and Egypt may have had on the medical advances (I was inspired by the tragedy of Vesuvius, and interested to see what was learnt from the first classically recorded volcano. Equally, the heat must have been difficlut to cope with in Ancient Egypt, and all around the Roman Empire there was a vast network of trade routes - sea voyages and long distance journies have medical implications.)
During the Easter holiday I went to the Pompeii Exhibition at the British Museum, where I noticed a set of brass surgical tools found in the ashes of Vesuvius. I have decided to use include this in my project, as it shows how the Ancient Roman surgeons operated, and also how little the tools of surgery have changed in 2000 years.
Unfortunately, research for my extended project might have to take a back seat for a while as, obviously at the moment my priority is to revise for my AS exams. So my target for half term will be to have researched Hippocrates and Ancient Egypt in as much detail as possible during the exam period.

18.03.13

Work has been really slow recently, mostly because of the amount of homework and tests I've been having at college in the run up to Easter. I haven't been able to officially start researching online because my home computer unexpectedly crashed. I plan to work around this by finding time during the week to use the college computers, and while I'm at home to make a plan of exactly what I will research and how to link this into my project. In the weeks ahead I am going to put this into practise and start my research.
Since my last post, I have written up my dissertation structure as far as I can without having completed the research. This has been great for seeing where I'm going with the project and putting my thoughts into order, but I won't be able to finish the structure plan until I know exactly what I'm going to write about, so I will write the plan alongside researching, so that I have a structure to follow for the final piece.
I have also found out that I am allowed to use pictures in my dissertation, which should be very useful when writing about artefacts.

25.02.13

So far, the project has been mostly planning documents. I've written up a timescale plan, a library research log, finished my rationale and begun to structure my dissertation. I've encountered no problems so far, but have enjoyed working with information technology to make plans. During this week I'm going to finish a structure plan for my dissertation. Next week I'm going to research ancient Greek medicine and Hippocrates (this part will hopefully include some elements of Philosophy).

Introduction

This is the log for my Extended Project, which will be a dissertation about the ancient history of medicine. I aim to answer the following questions:

• What was medicine like in the ancient world (Ancient Greece, Rome and Egypt)?
• Was there a scientific basis for treatements and medicines (i.e. process of introducing 'cures')
• What have we learnt from ancient medicine?

I will be posting here weekly about where I am in the project, any problems I encounter and how I solve them, and what I am planning for the week ahead. Hopefully some or all of the final project will be made available through this blog.