Industrial Period

• Enlightenment

  The church loses its power over medicine, scientific research becomes the centre of practice
• Development of big cities leads to emergence of threatening diseases e.g. smallpox, tuberculosis and typhus
• Galen's theory

  Still existed, losing popularity
• Miasma theory

  Still existed, losing popularity
• Scientific Revolution became popular to question traditional beliefs
• Ideas about the causes of disease in the Industrial Period
• Pasteur

  Germ Theory
• Pre Pasteur

  Spontaneous Generation Theory
• Rotting matter / decay

  Produced microbes which made you sick
• Germ Theory

  Microbes caused rotting matter and decay which still made you sick
• Pasteur was able to discover this thanks to Lister's microscopes
• 1000x magnification

  1826
• Four principles of Germ Theory

  • The air contains living microorganisms
  • Microbes can be killed by heating
  • Microbes in the air cause decay, not the other way round
  • Microbes are not evenly distributed in the air
• Short-Term Impact of Germ Theory

  • Little immediate impact as Pasteur was not a doctor - his work focused on decay not disease
  • Doctors and surgeons could not see microbes and trusted experienced doctors who promoted spontaneous generation theory e.g. H. Bastian
  • Some impact on Joseph Lister's work by linking Germ Theory to infection in his patients
• Long-Term impact of Germ Theory

  Discovery led to changes in preventing disease with vaccinations and the introduction of antiseptic and aseptic surgery
• 3 big problems in surgery

  • Pain
  • Infection
  • Bleeding
• Surgeons wore normal clothes and did not clean instruments, leading to infection
• Anaesthetic


  Ether, a gas that irritated the lungs
• Robert Lister used ether anaesthetic successfully to operate on a patient's leg

  1846
• Anaesthetic


  Chloroform, discovered by James Simpson in 1847 to help with pain
• Hannah Greener died from a chlorophorm overdose during operation to remove her toenail

  1848
• Antiseptic surgery


  Joseph Lister used carbolic acid to clear bacteria from wounds in 1865
• Aseptic surgery

  Microbes were stopped from getting into a wound through things like sterilisation, performed from 1890
• Some surgeons saw the amount of blood and dirt on their doctor's coat as a badge of honour
• Many Victorians believed that pain in childbirth was a part of God's plan, so should not be interfered with by human anaesthetics
• Inoculation


  The smothering of puss, for a certain disease, on an open wound to help the body develop natural immunity to it
• Pre-Vaccination


  • Problems: infection death, expensive, wrong dosage fatal
• Smallpox was the greatest killer of the time, with 10% of the population dying from it and 3/4 of children's deaths from it. In 1796 in London alone there were 3548 deaths from smallpox.
• Smallpox was announced in 1979 to have been wiped out
• Vaccination


  Edward Jenner noticed that milkmaids with cowpox did not catch smallpox, and discovered that a cowpox inoculation would prevent death by smallpox
• Vaccination


  • Jenner experimented on 8 year old James Phipps
• Opposition to Vaccine


  • Cost innoculators jobs and profits
  • Government shouldn't interfere - no right to fine people who don't vaccinate their children
  • Smallpox is a punishment for sin
  • It's against God's law to give people an animal disease
• Napolean vaccinated his whole army in 1805


  Opposition to vaccine from innoculators
• Short term impacts of Jenner

  1. Napolean vaccinated his whole army in 1805

  2. Opposition to vaccine from innoculators

  3. Some still died due to doctors mixing up smallpox and cowpox, reusing needles
• Long term impact of Jenner

  1. 1852, British government made smallpox vaccination compulsory, but faced opposition so did not enforce this

  2. 1871, enforced vaccinations by imposing fines

  3. Jenner's work inspired others: 1879 - Pasteur developed vaccine for chicken cholera then anthrax and rabies

  4. Behrig 1890-developed a vaccine for tetanus and diphtheria
• Koch's influence on Pasteur's work

  Robert Koch developed Pasteur's Germ Theory by successfully identifying the different microbes that caused common individual diseases
• Koch's discoveries


  1. 1876: Discovered the bacteria that caused anthrax

  2. 1882: Discovered the bacteria that caused typhoid and tuberculosis

  3. 1883: Discovered cholera, 1884 - proved its spread in water
• Microbes discovered by Koch's co-workers

  • Diphtheria
  • Pneumonia
  • Meningitis
  • The plague
  • Tetanus
• Koch's influence in Britain

  • Developed a dye to stain microbes
  • New method - growing microbes in agar jelly in a Petri dish enabled other scientists to study specific diseases
• By 1700, 5 hospitals left in Britain