Reflections On the Development of Medical Informatics

The recording of numbers appears to pre-date the emergence of writing and excavations of the clay tablets of civilisations in the Middle East have shown that clay tablets were used to keep account of activities undertaken in a systematic fashion. Correspondingly, various forms of abacus have been used types of calculation from the Sumerian abacus dating from about 4 ½ thousand years ago to the Chinese abacus (Suanpan) from around 2 thousand years ago. As time passed various forms of writing were developed using animal hides, which were developed as vellum and papyrus which eventually developed into paper. Wood block printing, also, was a very ancient art and movable type printing had been utilised in the far East but the development of movable type page setting in Europe transformed the process of printing.