18th & 19th Century Flashcards
What was the average life expectancy for a rich person in East London?
45
What was the average life expectancy of a poor person in East London?
16
Name 3 contagious diseases during the 18th/19th century
Typhoid/tuberculosis/typhus
How many families often lived in the same room in Victorian cities?
Whole family per room
What was rickets?
Crippling bone disease from lack of calcium and fresh air
What could being a chimney sweep cause?
Scrotal cancer and lung disease
What could a match girl get from their job?
Phossy jaw
What is phossy jaw?
When parts of the jaw are eaten away or glow greenish-white in the dark
What were the hazards for textile factory workers?
Machines rarely had guards to protect them so they often caught their hands, limbs and hair in the machine.
What illnesses did coal miners get?
Lung disease
What was pneumonoconiosis?
Disease of lungs by inhaling coal dust
What were general working conditions like?
Few regulations and accidents were frequent with no compensation and barely any future work.
What was introduced in the middle of the 1700s?
Industrialisation
What type of disease was Cholera?
Bacterial disease
Was Cholera fatal?
Not always
What caused Cholera?
contaminated water and food
Where did Cholera originate from?
Bengal, India
What were the symptoms of Cholera?
Severe vomiting and diarrhoea
Where was Cholera found?
Everywhere
When were the epidemics of Cholera?
1831-32 (50,000 dead)
1848 (60,000 dead)
1854 (20,000 dead)
1866
What two Welsh places had major Cholera epidemics?
Merthyr and Cardiff
When was the Cholera epidemic in Merthyr?
1849 Summer
Where was considered one of the highest death tolls in England and Wales from Cholera?
Merthyr
How many died in Merthyr?
1682 by November
Who introduced measures for cleansing Merthyr but had little impact?
Board of Guardians
Who helped with the Cholera epidemic in Merthyr?
Jossiah John Guest
What did Jossiah John Guest do?
opened refuge for the healthy and a night despensary for Cholera cases where free medicine was given.
What year was the Cardiff Cholera outbreak?
1849
What caused the increases cases in Cholera?
Long hot summer, great breeding ground for Cholera. Drought conditions caused normal water supplies to fresh water to dry up and made people use less safe sources (contamination)
How many died in Cardiff due to Cholera from 1948-49
396
What is Typhoid?
A bacterial infection passed from human to human through contaminated food or water.
What caused Typhoid?
Lack of cleaning/cleanliness
Who famously died from Typhoid?
Prince Albert in 1861
When were the Typhoid epidemics?
1800 (132 died)
1897-98 in Kent
Who identified the cause of scurvy in 1753?
James Lind
What did John Snow notice in 1854?
That the workers who drank beer not water had no cases of Cholera
What did Edward Jenner do?
He produced a vaccine that protected people from one of the most deadly infectious diseases of the period (Smallpox)
What percentage of people would die if they caught Smallpox?
Between 30% - 60%
What year was Smallpox eradicated?
1980
What was Smallpox?
A contagious and killer disease
What did Smallpox cause?
High fever and sores of pus around body
What is inoculation?
deliberately giving someone a mild form of a disease in the hope it will make them immune to catching a more serious form of disease
Name someone who used inoculation?
Lady Mary Montagu
Who was Edward Jenner?
A doctor from Gloucester
What did Jenner observe about milkmaids?
They caught Cowpox from milking cows and then found that they couldn’t catch Smallpox
What year did Jenner experiment on James Phipps?
1796
What did Jenner do in 1796?
Experimented on a boy called James Phipps by injecting him with pus from milkmaids Cowpox. He later gave him a dose of Smallpox after he fully recovered.
Why did Jenner call his discovery a ‘Vaccination’?
Vacca - Latin word for cow.
Was Jenner’s experiment successful?
Yes - Phipps did not get Smallpox
How did Doctors react to Jenner’s discovery?
As Jenner was a country doctor, they did not trust his discovery
How did the Royal Family react to Jenner’s discovery?
Some were vaccinated
What did Napoleon do at Jenner’s request?
He released a prisoner of War.
What did parliament give Edward Jenner in 1802?
Gave Jenner £10,000
How much more money did Parliament give Jenner in 1806?
£20,000
What year was vaccination made free for infants?
1840
In what year was vaccination made compulsory?
1853
Who insisted that doctors should wash their hands before childbirth, operations and before examination?
Ignaz Semmelweiss
What did Joseph Lister do?
Sterilised operations , room with carbolic acids, sterilised staff and made a machine to douse the room
What was the effect of Joseph Lister’s practises?
Death rates fell from 46% to 15%
Who invented the steam steriliser?
Charles Chamberland
What protective clothing was inroduced?
Surgical gloves and gowns
Before 1850, what was believed that caused ill health?
Bad air and imbalance of four humours
What did Louis Pasteur dicover?
Germ theory and was the first person to link germs with disease.
What was the importance of Pasteur’s discovery?
Linked germs to disease, developed vaccine for rabies and first person to develop effective vaccines in a lab, Inspired people like Robert Koch.
What was Robert Koch able to do?
Link particular germs to particular diseases.
What did Robert Koch receive?
Nobel peace prize
What was the importance of Koch’s discovery?
Isolated many causes to different killer diseases e.g. Typhoid, plague
