Modern Medicine

Penicillin

• Staphylococcus a nasty germ that remained undefeated

• Alexander Fleming became determined to find a better way to treat infected wounds and conducted detailed experiments

• Went on holiday and left several plates out, when he came back he noticed that the staphylococcus next to the mould had been killed = the mould was penicillin

• Didn’t test penicillin on animals or humans, so he couldn’t prove it worked as a medicine

• He also lost interest in it after a while because he didn’t have the skills or resources to turn it into an actual drug

Florey & Chain

• Read Fleming’s work and applied to the British government for money for further research, they received £25

• Produced enough penicillin to test on 8 mice successfully

• Next step was to test on humans - chose a policemen - infection began to clear up but there wasn’t enough penicillin so the man died

• WW2 meant more penicillin was needed, Florey & Chain went to US and got funding to mass produce it

• 15% of wounded soldiers would have died without penicillin and it’s still used today

World War One

X-Rays: Discovered in 1895 and became really important during WW1. Mobile x-ray machines were used near battlefield

Plastic Surgery: Harold Gillies developed a special skin graft to treat men with facial wounds

Blood Transfusions: Karl Landsteiner discovered blood groups which helped doctors work out that transfusions worked if they had the same blood type - still not possible to store blood for long

World War Two

Heart Surgery: Dwight Harken cut into beating hearts to remove bullets and shrapnel - helped it develop

Blood: 1938 British National blood Transfusion Service opened. Large blood banks developed

Diet: Shortages in food meant the government encouraged people to grow their own food = healthy

Poverty: Evacuated children highlighted the poverty situation and increased the government’s commitment to improve things

Liberal Reforms

School Meals: 1906 allowed local councils to provide school meals, by 1914 over 158,000 children were having a free school meal

National Insurance Act: Introduced unemployment benefit, free medical treatment and sickness pay

Gradually infant morality (death of a baby before their first birthday) began to drop

NHS

Beveridge Report, 1942: States that there were ‘5 giants’ that negatively impacted peoples lives in Britain (Idealness - a consequence of not being able to find a job, Want - lacking necessities such as food and clean water, Disease - a consequence of bad living conditions and lack of access to healthcare, Ignorance - a consequence of poor education standards, Squalor - living in unsafe, poor quality housing)

National Health Service: Set up in 1948, put Beveridge report into action, school leaving age raised to 15, NHS provided free healthcare to everyone

Bevan: Made the minister of Health to put NHS into place, enormous impact, people flocked to get free treatment

Opposition: Working people had to pay for the NHS in their taxes, doctors opposed because they didn’t want to become employees of the government and could previously charge whatever they wanted for treatments…now they couldn’t!