1900-present

• Medicine in modern Britain has seen great advances in the 20th and 21st centuries as technology developed and the government became more involved in the health of the British people
• Factors that have influenced medicine in the 20th century and beyond


  • Improvements in technology
  • Better access to care
  • Lifestyle factors
  • Government
  • Advances in science
  • Developments in technology
• Lifestyle factors


  • Poor diet
  • Lack of exercise
  • Smoking
  • Drinking alcohol
  • Stress
• Laissez-faire


  A government policy of interfering as little as possible in social and economic policy
• The government's role is to fund medical research and treatment, pass legislation to help prevent disease and illness, and educate people about dangers to their health
• Scotland was the first of the four UK nations to ban smoking in public places, through legislation passed in 2006. England, Northern Ireland and Wales followed in 2007
• Across the UK, the administrations have supported advertising campaigns to educate the British people about the dangers of smoking
• DNA


  Deoxyribonucleic acid; the chemical that carries the genetic code of an organism and determines all the organisms characteristics
• Some diseases, conditions or disorders are hereditary - which means they are passed from parents to children in genes
• Diagnosis


  The identification of a disease, illness or condition which is present in a patient. A diagnosis is made after looking for signs and symptoms in a patient
• Magic bullet


  A chemical treatment that kills specific bacteria inside the body without harming the body
• Antibiotic


  Substance that controls the spread of bacteria in the body by killing them or stopping them reproducing
• 1. ray


  High frequency electromagnetic radiation, used for medical imaging
• CT scan


  A computerised tomography scan. This uses X-rays and a computer to create detailed images of the inside of the body
• Magic bullet


  A chemical treatment that kills specific bacteria inside the body without harming the body
• Paul Ehrlich


  • Worked with Robert Koch in Germany
  • Put forward the concept of a magic bullet in 1900
  • Argued that a chemical could deliberately target bacteria in the human body and kill those bacteria
• Arsenic


  A form of poison
• Compound


  A substance formed by the chemical union (involving bond formation) of two or more elements
• Syphilis


  A sexually transmitted disease which causes degeneration to the brain and body if untreated
• Salvarsan 606


  • First magic bullet
  • Discovered by Japanese scientist Sahachiro Hata in 1909
  • 606th compound of Salvarsan (a drug containing arsenic)
  • Able to kill the bacteria that cause syphilis
• Prontosil


  • Second magic bullet
  • Discovered by Gerhard Domagk in the 1930s
  • Killed the bacteria that cause blood poisoning
  • Used to cure Domagk's daughter's blood poisoning
• Scientists realised that Salvarsan 606 and Prontosil contained sulphonamide
• Following the discovery of sulphonamide, drug companies developed sulphonamide cures for diseases such as pneumonia and scarlet fever
• Antibiotics


  Substance that controls the spread of bacteria in the body by killing them or stopping them reproducing
• The first antibiotic was discovered in 1928. It was called penicillin.
• Alexander Fleming's discovery of penicillin


  • Fleming was studying the wounds of soldiers and infections caused by the staphylococci bacteria
  • He left some dishes on the windowsill containing the bacteria and went on holiday
  • Above his laboratory, a scientist was working with penicillin mould
  • The penicillin mould landed on the dishes and killed the staphylococci bacteria
  • Fleming noticed that the penicillin mould could kill bacteria without harming other nearby cells
  • He experimented and successfully used penicillin to treat a friend's eye infection
  • Penicillin did not work on deeper infections and it took a long time to create enough penicillin to use
  • In 1929, Fleming wrote about his findings in a medical journal but did not continue with his study
• Howard Florey and Ernst Chain's development of penicillin

  • In 1938, they read Fleming's article on penicillin and realised it could be effective
  • They got £25 in funding from the British government but the government had other priorities during World War Two
  • They secured money from America to enable them to carry out more research
  • They discovered that penicillin was able to cure infections in mice
  • They started work using bedpans to build a home penicillin factory to create pure penicillin
  • By 1941, they had made enough pure penicillin to test it on a human, a policeman called Albert Alexander who had a bacterial infection called septicaemia
  • The treatment worked and Alexander's infection began to clear up, but they ran out of pure penicillin after a week and he died
• In 1941, America entered World War Two and the American government realised the potential importance of penicillin for treating wounded soldiers and funded its mass production.
• By D-Day in 1944, the Allies had produced 2.3 million doses of penicillin with which to treat the wounded.
• Medicine in modern Britain has seen great advances in the 20th and 21st centuries as technology developed and the government became more involved in the health of the British people
• In 1900, most sick people were still cared for at home, generally by women as it was traditionally viewed as their role to look after members of the family
• Doctors were too expensive for most families in 1900
• The role of the government in medicine increased throughout the 20th century
• The government began to

  1. Fund treatment

  2. Encourage mass vaccination

  3. Lead education programmes
• National Insurance Act 1911

  Enabled workers to access medical care, with workers, employers and the government paying into a fund
• The National Insurance Act did not include the families of workers
• Ministry of Health set up in 1919


  First government department to have an overview of health across the country
• By the 1930s, there were still a lot of people who could not afford medical care and treatment
• National Health Service (NHS)


  Provided free health care at the point of delivery for all residents of Britain
• World War Two led to a change in access to health care in Britain, with many people getting free health care during the war and wanting this to continue