medicine through time 1700-1900

Anaesthetics

James Simpson - chloroform

1847

> tested effects of chloroform = it worked

Queen Victoria gave birth using chloroform ( 1853 )

> became widely used

--- sometimes affected the heart = die suddenly

Chadwicks Report

* 1842 - published report on poverty / health

> living conditions in towns worse than in countryside

Public Health Act 1848

- board of health set up

- allowed towns to set up local board of health

--- was not mandatory so many towns ignored this

The great Stink

1858

- river level (Thames) dropped and bacteria grew in waste

> smell bad / stopped a meeting in Parliament

Bazalgette

1859-1865

- built new sewage system

- blueprint for most European cities

Public Health Act 1875

better than 1848 - it was compulsory

= enforced councils to :

+ appoint health / sanitary inspections

+ maintain sewage system

Vaccination

Edward Jenner 1796

before : inoculation ( cut in a arm and put in the arm)

after : injection of a dead or inactive virus

Smallpox and Cowpox

- myth that milkmaids don't get smallpox

1796

> Jenner tested theory, injected a young boy with cowpox from a milkmaid

= then injected with smallpox - didn't catch disease

Government approval to vaccination

1802

- parliament approved and gave Jenner £10,000 to open a clinic

- later gave him £20,000

1840

- vaccination free to infants

1853

- compulsory to vaccinate children

Pasteur

- used to think disease was caused by spontaneous generation

1861

- Germ Theory published

> argued that microbes cause decay/ disease - received scepticism as people didn't believe

Robert Koch

- linked specific diseases to a particular microbe

> anthrax 1876

> Pasteur created vaccination for anthrax

Florence Nightingale

- studied to become a nurse in 1849

- went to Crimea to sort out nursing care

> went with 38 other nurses

- made sure all the wards were clean/ hygienic, water supplies adequate and patients fed properly

- death rate:

before = 42%

after = 2%

Nightingales Influence

1859

- "Notes on Nursing"

> explained her methods, standard textbook on hygiene

- public raised £44,000 to train nurses, Nightingale School of Nursing

> 1900= 64,000 trained nurses

> 1919= nurses registration act = all nurses must be trained

Antiseptics

Semmelweis

- reduce spread of influence by washing hands with chloride of lime

Lister

- carbolic acid = reduced infection rates

- death rate 50% to 15%

- patients not scared so operations increased

John Snow

- discovered that cholera was a water born disease and not miasma (1854)

- he removed the handle from a water pump as water pump had a leaking latrine near it > less people caught cholera