Industrial Medicine

• How was pain conquered?

  • breakthroughs of painkillers, like nitrous oxide, ether, chloroform
  • these reduced pain but didn't stop infection, surgery only became safe when antiseptics were introduced
• Theory of Spontaneous Generation

  • that living organisms could mysteriously appear from non-living substances
  • improvements in tech meant scientists could see microbes of living matter
• Germ Theory

  • Pasteur proved germs caused disease
  • used swan necked flasks - when neck was unbroken germs couldn't get in, so no decay vs neck being broken meant germs entered so milk went sour. observed over weeks to prove that germs couldn't spontaneously appear
  • published in 1861
• Germ Theory - Koch

  • 1876
  • noticed that animals in certain areas developed anthrax
  • gathered blood samples and used a chemical that stained bacteria
  • discovered bacteria only present in diseased animals
  • he cultivated bacteria and injected it into healthy proving it caused disease then reisolated bacteria
  • Koch's Postulates, linking a specific microorganism to disease