Early Modern Medicine 1700-1900

Question 1

What was inoculation?

Answer 1

Making a cut in a patient’s arm and soaking it with smallpox pus

Question 2

Why was inoculation somewhat unsuccessful?

Answer 2

Some people caught smallpox and died
It was also expensive

Question 3

How did Edward Jenner come up with and test the theory of vaccinations?

Answer 3

He observed that milkmaids caught cowpox but not smallpox
He injected cowpox pus into a young boy and attempted to infect him with smallpox
The boy did not get smallpox

Question 4

Why were some people opposed to vaccinations?
What shows their success despite this?

Answer 4

It was mostly doctors who did not want to lose money if inoculation became obsolete
1853 - smallpox vaccinations became mandatory

Question 5

What was the theory spontaneous generation?

Answer 5

Microbes are created by decaying matter

Question 6

What were the results of Louis Pasteur’s experiment with flasks?

Think: germs

Answer 6

An open flask of sterilised water bred germs. A closed flask did not

Question 7

When did Pasteur publish the Germ Theory, and what did he argue in it?

Answer 7

1861 - that microbes caused decay, rather than the other way around

Question 8

Why did Pasteur’s Germ Theory not become useful until several years after it was published?

Answer 8

It was initially met with scepticism by trusted surgeons

Question 9

How did Robert Koch identify specific microbes?
Which ones did he identify in the 1880’s?

Answer 9

Grew a culture of them using agar jelly, and then stained them for viewing under a microscope
Cholera and tuberculosis

Question 10

Which war did Nightingale and Seacole nurse in?

Answer 10

Crimean War

Question 11

What did Florence Nightingale do to the Scutari hospital?
How much did the death rate fall by?

Answer 11

• Put an emphasis on cleanliness, e.g. handwashing
• Put more reliable water supplies and better food in place

40%

Question 12

What did Nightingale set up in London, with funding from the public?
When did she publish her book, ‘Notes on Nursing’?

Answer 12

Nightingale School of Nursing
1859

Question 13

What did Mary Seacole set up with her own wealth?

Answer 13

The British Hotel - a collection of makeshift buildings that served as a hospital, a shop, and a canteed for soldiers fighting in the Crimean War

Question 14

Who discovered chloroform as an anaesthetic?
How?

Answer 14

James Simpson knocked over a bottle of chloroform - he and his friends passed out from inhaling it. He was originally trying to discover pain relief for childbirth

Question 15

Who famously used chloroform in her childbirth?

Answer 15

Queen Victoria

Question 16

What was the problem with chloroform?

Answer 16

It was hard to get the correct dose. There was always a tiny margin between a correct dose and a lethal dose

Question 17

Who invented the chloroform inhaler?

Answer 17

John Snow

Question 18

Why was Joseph Lister inspired to use carbolic acid in the operating theatre?

Answer 18

He had seen it used in sewage to keep down the smell
He was also inspired by Louis Pasteur’s Germ Theory

Question 19

What is carbolic acid?
What did Joseph Lister start using it on?

Answer 19

An antiseptic

Medical instruments and bandages

Question 20

From 1864-1870, due to carbolic acid, how much did death rates in surgery decrease by?
What did this allow?

Answer 20

35%

Longer and more invasive surgeries

Question 21

What is asepsis, and when was it first achieved?

Answer 21

A germ-free environment
Late 1800’s

Question 22

When was the Cholera outbreak in the Broad Street area of London?
Who conducted investigations in this area?

Answer 22

1854

John Snow

Question 23

What did Snow’s investigations about Broad Street conclude?

Answer 23

The victims were all using the same pump - Cholera had to be waterborne

Question 24

What did Snow convince the council to do? Was it successful?

Answer 24

Remove the handle from the Broad Street Pump
Yes - it turned out that a nearby cesspit had leaked into the water supply

Question 25

What did John Snow’s investigations on cholera make people realise?

Answer 25

Government intervention was needed to clean streets and waterways

Question 26

When was the first Public Health Act?
Why was it unsuccessful?

Answer 26

1842

The government made nothing compulsory, so local councils did not follow it

Question 27

What was laissez-faire?
What changed these attitudes?

Answer 27

The idea that the government should not intervene in public health
John Snow’s discovery on Broad Street, as well as writers such as Charles Dickens

Question 28

When was the second Public Health Act?
What did it put in place?
Why was it more effective than the first?

Answer 28

1875
Forced councils to appoint health inspectors, maintain sewerage systems, and keep the streets clean
It was compulsory