history medicine

• Period of 1700 to 1900


  • Rapid change in medicine
  • End of laissez-faire which weakened from the mid 19th century onwards
  • Enhanced role for government, especially the 1875 Public Health Act
  • Work of key individuals like Florence Nightingale, James Simpson, Joseph Lister
  • Importance of work overseas by Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch
  • Enhanced role of technology like microscopes and laboratory equipment
• Miasma theory


  Explanation that disease was caused by poisonous air and fumes
• Miasma theory


  Limited the effectiveness of public health measures until late in the period
• Weakening of miasma theory

  • Work of John Snow proving cholera was waterborne
  • Importance of Louis Pasteur's germ theory
• Germ theory


  Disease is caused by microbes
• Impacts of germ theory


  • Public health measures became more effective with focus on sanitation
  • Led to development of vaccinations
• Louis Pasteur


  • Proved spontaneous generation false
  • Explained how vaccinations work
  • Created vaccinations like for rabies
• Pasteur and Koch


  Rivals, but Pasteur used Koch's laboratory techniques
• Robert Koch


  • Identified first microbe for human disease (tuberculosis)
  • Developed techniques like staining bacteria and growing them on mediums
• Florence Nightingale


  • Improved status and quality of nursing
  • Improved hospital sanitation
• James Simpson


  • Discovered chloroform as first effective general anesthetic
  • Faced some opposition from church and surgeons
• Joseph Lister


  • Applied Pasteur's germ theory to surgery
  • Introduced carbolic acid spray in operating theatres
  • Dramatically reduced post-operation death rates
• 1848 Public Health Act


  • Voluntary, so ineffective
• 1875 Public Health Act


  • Compulsory, so effective
  • Forced towns to improve water supplies, drainage, and appoint medical/sanitary officers
• Laissez-faire


  Idea that government should not interfere in social welfare and people's lives
• Laissez-faire attitude


  Coupled with vested interests, slowed down public health improvements
• Edward Jenner


  • Discovered vaccination against smallpox using cowpox
  • Faced opposition from those against government interference
• John Snow


  • Proved cholera was waterborne, not caused by miasma
  • Removed handle of Broad Street pump to stop cholera outbreak
  • His work took decades to be accepted
• Cholera epidemics were prevalent in London and other major English cities since the 1830s
• Water supplies in towns and cities were filthy and dirty, unknown to be causing cholera