Evolution Of Modern Medicine Flashcards
When did the practice of medicine as we know it today in emerge?
18th century.
Discuss modern medicine
The practice of medicine as we know it today emerged in the 18th century it was fuelled by the Industrial Revolution.
Changes in how and where people live led to both a demographic and epidemiologic transition
In the 19th century major changes in discoveries and inventions that paved the way for innovative techniques ‘the art of medicine became scientific’, however groundbreaking work begun Much earlier.
Medicine in the 17th century.
The greatest physiological advance in the 17th century was the discovery of the circulation of blood. it was discovered by William Harvey.
In 1628 Harvey’s de motu cordis which was concerned with the mechanical process of circulation.
William Harvey
Harvey discovered that the heart was just a muscular pump moving blood around the body in One Direction.
He was no longer convinced about demonic spirits and the humour Theory wasn’t convincing him either because it was centred around vital spirits moving from the heart and they were said to regulate the balance of the four humours and the balance between these could be disturbed by spiritual intervention. This was just not holding it for him.
Anton van leeuwenhoek
He developed the most powerful microscopes of his day. Underscored germ theory he discovered single-celled protozoans and bacteria his work eventually led to the discovery of the causes of diseases such as the Black Death.
Edward Jenner
Edward Jenner discovered that having cowpox protected a person against smallpox.
His cowpox serum saved many lives and almost eliminated the disease of smallpox. his discovery of vaccination is considered one of the most important discoveries in medicine.
But at that point neither Jenner nor any other doctor at that time knew the cause of infectious diseases or why The vaccinations worked
Noteworthy events of the 19th century
- The birth of anaesthesia
- Relationship between nutrition and disease
- Development of the stethoscope
The birth of Anaesthesia and the people involved.
19th century physician administering chloroform prior to surgery. Ether was one of the earliest anesthetics to be used but was difficult to administer as it usually made the patient choke.
- Sir Humphry Davy = laughing gas (nitrous oxide) resulted in dentistry being much less painful
- Sir James Young Simpson = chloroform could be used as an anesthetic. He fought to make anesthesia an established part of surgery
- William Thomas Green Morton = invented a special glass inhaler and added perfume to Ether. he successfully used ether to pull a tooth and to then perform painless surgery.
The relationship between nutrition and disease and the people involved in discoveries.
James Lind = in James Lind’s experiment those that ate citrus fruit stayed healthier.
He used British Navy and ordered the sailors to drink lime juice.
James Lind had found the cure for scurvy - vitamin C deficiency - the cure for scurvy was vitamin C.
Christian Ejikman
he found that bacteria did not cause beriberi he found that brown rice was a cure for beriberi because of a vitamin (now we know is thiamine) in the husks of the rice.
The development of the stethoscope.
The stethoscope was discovered by Rene-Theophile-Hyacinthe Laennec
From miasmata to germ theory
Galen said that poisons in the atmosphere from cesspits and rotting material caused illness.
But
Jakob Henle, a German pathologist published an essay “on miasmata and contagia” where he tried to show that tiny living creatures in the human body caused infectious diseases.
the idea of germs began to challenge the prevailing theory that said illness was cause by miasma?
Scientists whose work supported Jakob Henle about the idea that came across from his essay. So basically supported the germ theory
Frenchman Louis Pasteur and British surgeon Joseph Lister
Ignaz Philipp Semmelweiss. What did prove?
- Child fever was responsible for the deaths of thousands of young mothers more women were dying under the care of doctors than of Midwives.
- He discovered that doctors were spreading childbed fever, he proved that doctors were carrying the disease from corpses to their live patients, he proved that cleanliness could prevent childbed fever.
Joseph Lister and infection
He found that infection was a major problem during surgery. People often died after surgery from the infection alone. Discovered that carbolic acid prevented infection.
He lowered the death rate in his surgeries by insisting that everything be kept clean and disinfected. He discovered that it was not the presence of acid but absence of germs that mattered in surgery.
Louis Pasteur
He dismissed the miasmatic theory of disease he argued that diseases were caused by germs so he effectively established bacteriology as a science.
He found that an anthrax vaccine could be made by heating the bacteria and discovered that rabies was caused by a virus instead of bacteria and then developed a vaccine for humans.
