Emergency care in a country practice.

on one hand, the patients and their relatives on the other. In Britain personal medical care can be traced to pre -Roman times. Medical care began with the family women looking after their children, and their men learned, for example, that bleeding could be staunched by pressure from the hand, and that thorns and parasites could be extracted with the fingers. They treated minor ailments with simple domestic remedies and those who became particularly skilful at it were increasingly in demand as the communities grew: the origins of general practice. Serious disease which prevented the sufferer from taking his share of the tasks that were required of him differentiated him from the rest of the tribe. His fate then depended on the basic nature of the economy. It may have been economic ally necessary to kill members of the nomadic hunting and fruit gathering groups once they were incapable of carrying out their duties. The economy of later static agricultural societies would have allowed them to take a more liberal attitude towards those who were ill, and to attempt to provide them with medical care. General practice evolved through the ages and indeed continues to evolve with the new contract introduced last April.