treatments

• Alexander Fleming


  • noticed that antiseptics could not prevent infections, especially in deep wounds.
  • also noticed that a mould (penicillin) had grown in a petri dish and had killed the staphylococci bacteria in 1928.
  • therefore named penicillin an antibiotic - killer of life.
  • published his results in 1929, but didn't have enough funds to develop the drug
• alexander fleming


  • created the first antibiotic, while antiseptics could prevent infections in some wounds, antibiotics could kill all infections in any wounds, saving more people.
• florey and chain - penicillin


  1937 - they experimented and produced some of the drug (that fleming didn't have enough funds to develop).

  1940 - tested on a human but he died once their stock ran out -->proves how effective the drug us if the patient is surviving on the drug.
• medieval

  • Herbalist: 

  → headache - drink warm chamomile tea + sleep on rosemary +lavender scented pillows for 15 mins

  →  unwell  - boil rosemary leaves in fayre water and drink  

  → eye infection - pound onion and garlic and mix with wine and bull’s gall, let it sit for 9 nights, then strain and apply with a feather to the eye at night time. 

  → toothache - take a candle of sheep’s suet, and burn as close to the tooth as possible while holding cold water underneath. The worms causing the toothache will fall out to escape the heat of the candle.
• medieval

  • Physician: 

  → excess liquid in body - bloodletting by leeches

  → unwell - urine test, colour smell and taste

  → zodiac charts - physicians used these to show which body part is related to which astrological sign, when to carry out the ‘surgery’ and what to do. 
• medieval

  • Barber-surgeon: 

  → broken bone - mend broken limbs with casts

  → toothache - pull out infected teeth

  → unwell - bloodletting using leeches.
• medieval

  CHANGE: advanced treatments e.g. chamomile tea, which many people do in the present day. Barber surgeons are the most effective because they mainly use methods [e.g. pulling out infected teeth] that we use today. Herbalists used honey + other plants as ingredients that we now know help cure infections. 
• early modern

  CHANGE: doctrine of signatures [the idea that is a plant looked like a part of the body, it could be used to treat that part when is it was ill]  rhubarb + tobacco [used in herbal remedies] observation, experiment and recording results, mental illness [‘melancholy’], taking fresh air, improving your diet. 

  CONTINUITY: physicians, use of herbs + herbal remedies, astronomy
• modern: 19th century

  Surgery before c19th:

  • Body snatchers [dissection of corpses]
  • Spread of infection from students and surgeons
  • No washing hands, no clean clothes
  • Unhygienic → unsterile equipment
  • No anaesthetic
  • 25% die of hospital infection after surgery
  • Surgeons tried to complete surgeries at great speed which lead to accidents. 
  • 50% mortality rate
  • NO CHANGE.
• modern: 19th century

  Joseph Lister:

  • Experimented to prevent patients from dying from blood poisoning after operation on frogs.
  • Created antiseptics. 
  • Used carbolic acid to :wash his hands and all instruments before an operation, to soak bandages before applying them to wounds, soak silk thread in it before tying up wounds. 
  • Ordered surgeons to wash their hands
  • Reduced the infection rate from 46% to 15% in 3 years. 
  • Invented a spray machine in 1871 so that carbolic acid could be sprayed everywhere.
• modern: 19th century

  James Simpson:

  • 1847 - Experimented on him and his friends with chloroform, to reduce pain during childbirth
  • 1850s - cocaine was used as a local anaesthetic, initially as eye drops. The use of cocaine rapidly spread as it could be produced easily after 1891. 
  • But it was difficult to get the dosage correct with early painkillers. No control over infection
  • 1870s - some stopped using chloroform because their mortality rates were higher than before.
  • But it was used by queen victoria in the birth of her 8th child - changed the public's opinion about chloroform. 
• modern: 19th century

  Aseptic surgery: 

  • Means there are no germs in the first place
  • 1878: robert koch discovered that disease was spread by contact with infected surfaces and not ait, so operations needed to be carried out in a germ free environment
  • 1881 - steam steriliser invented by Charles Chamberland for medical/surgical instruments. 
  • 1886: Gustav Neuber had the first sterile operating theatre where staff has to scrub before entering. 
  • Later 1880s - surgical protective clothing was worn by William Halsted.
• modern: 19th century

  CHANGE: dramatic change with the invention of antiseptics and anaesthesia, changes in surgery made it safe.