history - medicine

• Hippocrates


  Theory of 4 Humours - Black bile, Yellow bile, Phlegm, Blood. Believed in careful observation.
• Galen


  Theory of Opposites = Treat your illness by balancing out the humours. Lived in Rome.
• Galen believed in `One creator God`
• Black Death [1348-1349]


  • Originated in China, spread to India, Europe, England
  • 40% of England's population died
  • Believed to be caused by "bad air" or God's punishment, actually caused by rats/flea bites on rats
  • Ships were quarantined for 40 days
• Renaissance [1250-1500]


  • Same ideas = miasma + praying to God
• Royal Society


  Created in 1660, made for improving knowledge. Government funded, sign that the king supported new ideas. Used new ideas/technology = microscopes.
• William Harvey


  • Went against Galen's ideas = heart acted as a pump + veins carry blood and not air. Dissected animals to prove his ideas. (Book = An Anatomical Account of the Motion of the Heart and Blood Animals)
• Thomas Sydenham


  • Believed in observation + diagnosis. Chicken and wine. Gave the first description of Scarlet Fever. Full report on patients' health.
• Vesalius


  • Gave us knowledge of anatomy + proved Galen wrong - 1 jaw bone instead of 2. However people still followed Galen. Gave us no treatments however. 1543 = Fabric of the Human Body.
• Pare


  • Was a battlefield surgeon. Whilst in battle, he ran out of boiling oil so he made an old Roman ointment of roses, turpentine and egg yolk. Developed ligatures to seal wounds.
• Great Plague [1665]


  • London death toll = 100,000. Prevention = praying, chewed tobacco, hung lavender in windows and doorways. 1666 Great Fire of London sterilised large parts of London, killing the plague.
• Renaissance Treatment


  • 4 humours
  • Wrote down herbal remedies (spread faster)
  • Galen and Hippocrates still followed
  • New equipment = microscopes + thermometers
• Simpson [1847]


  • Chloroform could be used as an anaesthetic - however patients could die from too much.
• Snow [1854]


  • Cholera - removed water pump from Broad Street. Killed over 500 people in 10 days.
• Nightingale


  • Nurse in the Crimean War [1854-1856]. Improved hygiene in hospitals (still believed in miasma). Wrote 2 books + nursing school (1863 + 1859)
• Pasteur [1861]


  • Germ theory = bacteria caused disease. Could not identify specific bacteria.
• Lister [1867]


  • First antiseptic against infection. In hospitals they soaked bandages in carbolic acid, sterilised tools, and sterilised hospitals. Met with opposition from surgeons as they didn't believe in bacteria.
• Jenner [1798]


  • Used Cowpox to produce a smallpox vaccination. Tested on 25 people. His vaccination wiped out smallpox in 1980.
• Koch [1882]


  • Used Pasteur's work to identify what bacteria caused what disease.
• Chadwick [1842-48]


  • Outbreak in diseases such as cholera. `Report on the sanitary condition of the labouring population`
• Public Health Acts [1848+1875]


  1. 1848 = not mandatory. Councils encouraged towns to make improvements. National Board of Health set up.

  2. 1875 = now compulsory for towns to improve sewage/drainage. Major change in governments attitudes to improving health.
• Magic bullets [1909]


  • First drug to kill bacteria in the body. Paul Elrich. First magic bullet called Salvarsan 60. Took until the 1930's to find a bullet that didn't kill patients.
• Fleming [1928]


  • Fleming came to clean up culture dishes he needed for experiments and he noticed mould grew on one. He noticed bacteria around the spore stopped growing - called pelicinin. Unable to take work further.
• Florey and Chain


  • Read Fleming's journal on pelicinin. Asked for funding = £25 from the government but 3 million from America (due to WW2 involvement). 1941 = enough pelicinin to test - Alexander (worked until ran out)
• NHS [1948]


  • WW2 made the government realise the health problems of the poor. Bevan was labour minister = introduced NHS after the WW2 lack of funds . National Insurance = tax to fund the NHS.
• The Human Genome Project [1986-2001]


  • Completed by 18 countries over 15 years. Found a purpose for each gene. Could now identify specific genetic diseases.
• Improvements in Diagnosis


  • Endoscope - camera that can see inside the body
  • Scans + monitors - see people for diseases.
  • X-rays - scan people to identify specific diseases.
• Bad lifestyle


  • Smoking = 90% of people with lung cancer smoke
  • Poor diet
  • Alcohol
  • Lack of exercise
  • Poverty