Important Individuals in Medicine

Question 1

Aristotle

Answer 1

An Ancient Greek philosopher who believed everything in the world was made up of four elements; fire, water, earth and air

Question 2

Hippocrates

Answer 2

Greek Physician who developed the theory that the body was made up of the four humours. If they were out of balance this would make a person ill.

Question 3

Galen

Answer 3

Roman Physician and surgeon. He developed the theory of the opposites that suggested to re-balance the four humours, you would need to give someone an item that was the opposite of the problem the person had. For example, you would eat a hot pepper if you had a cold.

Not only this but he had some surgical breakthroughs such as discovering that the nervous system was linked to the brain as well as making many errors. For example, he he believed that the jaw bone was made up of two parts when it is only one.

Question 4

William the Conqueror

Answer 4

When he conquered England in 1066, he brought a nursing system to England that emphasised the role of churches as a place that cares for the sick

Question 5

Pope Innocent III

Answer 5

Good example of an exact Pope to use if you are trying to emphasise the power that the Catholic church had over everyday life. He is a Pope that you need to know to know know about for King Richard and King John

Question 6

Henry VIII

Answer 6

Ordered the shutting down of monasteries in 1536, which lead to the shutting down of a number of hospitals in England and a wakening of the power of the church

Question 7

Paracelcus

Answer 7

The first to theorise that the body was made up of chemicals and that chemicals could be created to cure sickness. He experimented with chemicals such as arsenic and mercury

Question 8

Versalius

Answer 8

In 1543, he published “The Fabric of the Human Body”. This corrected many of Galen’s mistakes about the anatomy of the body

Question 9

Francastro

Answer 9

Developed the theory of contagion, that diseases were contagious. He published “On Contagion” in 1546

Question 10

Edmund Colthurst and Hugh Mydddleton

Answer 10

Individuals who were responsible for putting money up for bringing fresh water to the city of London in 1546

Question 11

William Harvey

Answer 11

He developed the correct theory of circulation in the early 1600s, how blood pumped around the body

Question 12

Van Helmont

Answer 12

He claimed in 1648 that digestion happened because of stomach acid, not because of anything to do with the Four Humours

Question 13

Thomas Sydenham

Answer 13

Wrote the “Observations Medicae” in 1676. This was a direct challenge to the very basis of the four humours. Sydenham theorised that disease happened because of things attacking the body, not because of imbalanced within it

Question 14

Antonie Van Leeuwenhoek

Answer 14

He developed the first microscope with funding from the Royal Society. In 1702, he published images of what he called ‘animalcules’. These were germs

Question 15

Lady Mary Montague

Answer 15

She observed the use of variation (inoculation) in Asia and introduced it to Britain

Question 16

Thomas Dimsdale

Answer 16

He made inoculation popular in Britain in the 1700s

Question 17

Edward Jenner

Answer 17

Developed the first vaccination, for smallpox, through observing milkmaids who seemed to be immune to it from contracting cowpox - a milder disease from the same family of diseases

Question 18

Charles Cagniard de la Tour

Answer 18

In the 1830s, he was an early critic of the popular ideas of Spontaneous Generation, which he thought was wrong

Question 19

Edwin Chadwick

Answer 19

He published a report in 1842, that suggested the government needed to do more for the poor in the big cities as a way of dealing with big outbreaks of illness

Question 20

James Simpson

Answer 20

He developed the first popular anaesthetic, after discovering chloroform had the ability to make you unconscious for periods of time

Question 21

Florence Nightingale

Answer 21

Improved hospital training and conditions after experiencing how bad things were in the Crimean War of 1853

Question 22

John Snow

Answer 22

He made chloroform safer by inventing a dispenser. Later, in 1854, he used an outbreak of Cholera in Soho, London to prove the link between water and disease

Question 23

Joseph Bazalgette

Answer 23

After the Great Stink of 1858, he was employed by the government to improve the sewage systems in London

Question 24

Louis Pasteur

Answer 24

He published his 4 principles of Germ Theory in 1861

Question 25

John Tyndall

Answer 25

Helped make germ theory more believable and popular in Britain in the 1870s by proving the existence of small organic particles in the air and linking Pasteur’s successes to the successes of Joseph Lister - a surgeon who had been experimenting with carbolic acid as an antiseptic

Question 26

Robert Koch

Answer 26

“If Pasteur gave us the alphabet, Koch wrote the books.” Koch discovered specific germs for specific diseases in the 1800s, such as cholera and tuberculosis

Question 27

William Watson Cheyne

Answer 27

He developed antiseptic surgery and a surgical instrument we still use today the ‘ Watson Cheyne dissector’

Question 28

Emil Von Behring

Answer 28

He discovered the Diptheria antitixin in 1901. At the time, this was a huge killer of children

Question 29

Dr. Bastien

Answer 29

A supporter of the discredited theory of ‘spontaneous generation’. This belief was popular in the 1800s and suggested decaying matter was the cause of germs. he dies in 1915 and his death was part of the slow acceptance of germ theory in Britain

Question 30

Paul Ehrlich

Answer 30

Leader of the research team that discovered salvarsan 606 in 1909. Tis was a successful chemical cure of syphillis

Question 31

David Lloyd George

Answer 31

Leader of the Liberal government in the early 1900s. He passed a series of reforms (changes for the better) which made the government more involved in te day to day care of people

Question 32

Archibald Garrod

Answer 32

Published a theory in 1902 that some diseases were caused by missing information in the body’s chemical pathways

Question 33

Alexander Fleming

Answer 33

!n 1928, he wrote a paper on the healing substance that surrounded mould

Question 34

Gerhard Domagk

Answer 34

Developed prontosil - a successful antibacterial drug - in 1932

Question 35

Howard Florey and Ernst Chain

Answer 35

Developed penicillin using the principles of the research of Alexander Fleming

Question 36

Nye Bevan

Answer 36

Health Minister in the Labour government of 1945 and after. He was influential in setting up the NHS

Question 37

Rosalind Franklin, James Watson and Francis Crick

Answer 37

Franklin photographed DNA and Watson and Crick were the scientists who mapped out its structure and discovered the once of it in relation to hereditary diseases