Growth of Laboratory Medicine

Question 1

What was the state of experimentation in C17th-18th?

Answer 1

Existed privately, but was not a profession - practitioners had other jobs

Question 2

When was ‘scientist’ coined and why?

Answer 2

1833, as analogy to an artist

Question 3

What did Hippocrates emphasise?

Answer 3

Rationality and experience - early scientific orientation

From early-modern period, ‘experience’ became orientated with ‘experiments’, especially those in labs

Question 4

Santorio Santorio (1561-1636)

Answer 4

Weighed input/outputs of body - nutrition study, quantitative research emphasis

Question 5

Where were the first scientists employed?

Answer 5

C19th German universities - due to culture of research-based teaching, and that students were free to move between universities freely

Question 6

Institute of Chemistry

Answer 6

1824 in Geissen by Von Liebeg

Question 7

What did von Liebeg do?

Answer 7

Black box experiments of animal metabolism
Reductionist approach - reduced living phenomena to observable scientific laws
Founded Institute of Chemistry in Geissen, 1824

Question 8

What did Wohler do?

Answer 8

Urea synthesis 1828

Illustrated that there were no boundaries between chemistry and nature - validating the reductionist approach

Question 9

When was the Institute of Physiology founded

Answer 9

1865, Leipzig by Carl Ludwig
Major research centre
Invented kymograph to record physiological data on revolving drum - huge influence on later research

Question 10

What did Johannes Muller do?

Answer 10

mid-1800s neurophysiological research - reflexes

Produced handbook of physiology - in vernacular

Question 11

Schwann and Schleiden

Answer 11

1830s: Proposed that animals and plants (respectively) were only made of cells - reducing life to a physical process

Question 12

Claude Bernard

Answer 12

Argued that laboratory, and not hospital, is the true centre of medical science - ability to control variables
Hypothetico-deductive method proposed
Suggests observation is the scientist’s only authority - not reliance on past work

Question 13

What did Virchow do

Answer 13

1858 ‘cellula e cellula’ - conceptualised all diseases in cellular terms, making microscopy central to medicine

Question 14

What did Robert Koch do?

Answer 14

1880s identification of the TB and cholera bactillus
Established Centre for Infectious Diseases in 1891 Berlin
Developed Four Postulates to identify causative agent of disease
Improved microscopy by adding camera - allowing peer reviewing thus higher objectivity

Question 15

How did Robert Koch improve microscopy?

Answer 15

Added camera - peer reviewing, thus higher objectivity

Question 16

Who developed the Four Postulates and when?

Answer 16

Robert Koch - 1890s

Identified causative agent of disease

Question 17

What did Louis Pasteur do?

Answer 17

Physics and chemistry graduate - NOT physician
Established microbiological study of everyday phenomena (commercial basis, e.g. yeast)
Identified nature of infection and immunity - rabies vaccine 1885
Pasteur Institute founded 1888 by public subscription (though he sensationalised rabies)

Question 18

What was interesting about Koch and Pasteur?

Answer 18

Did not work together/get on - due to poor Franco-Prussian war relations?

Question 19

Why was bacteriology useful for public medicine?

Answer 19

Could understand sources and patterns of epidemics

Question 20

What does McKeown argue?

Answer 20

That mortality reduction was caused by better nutrition and living standards, not healthcare

Question 21

Who wrote the first microscopy book?

Answer 21

Robert Hooke, 1665 - coined term ‘cell’

Question 22

Why did microscopy advance from the 1820s onwards?

Answer 22

Better understanding of light refraction

Question 23

What did Joseph Lister do in the 1930s?

Answer 23

Combined multiple lenses in microscopes to reduce blurring

Question 24

What was invented in 1871?

Answer 24

Microscope allowing 3 people to see the same image - more objective
(Robert Koch added camera in 1880s)

Question 25

When were chloroform and ether discovered?

Answer 25

In labs, used from 1840s

Question 26

When was the first public demonstration of surgery under ether?

Answer 26

1846

Question 27

When was the ultracentrifuge invented and what impacyt did it have?

Answer 27

1920s allowing large scale analysis of samples

Question 28

When was insulin synthesised

Answer 28

1920s

Question 29

Who discovered pencillin and when?

Answer 29

Alexander Fleming 1928

Question 30

When was the portable pH meter invented?

Answer 30

1935 - made pH testing rapid and cheap