Important Individuals in Medicine Flashcards
Aristotle
An Ancient Greek philosopher who believed everything in the world was made up of four elements; fire, water, earth and air
Hippocrates
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.
Galen
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.
William the Conqueror
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
Pope Innocent III
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
Henry VIII
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
Paracelcus
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
Versalius
In 1543, he published “The Fabric of the Human Body”. This corrected many of Galen’s mistakes about the anatomy of the body
Francastro
Developed the theory of contagion, that diseases were contagious. He published “On Contagion” in 1546
Edmund Colthurst and Hugh Mydddleton
Individuals who were responsible for putting money up for bringing fresh water to the city of London in 1546
William Harvey
He developed the correct theory of circulation in the early 1600s, how blood pumped around the body
Van Helmont
He claimed in 1648 that digestion happened because of stomach acid, not because of anything to do with the Four Humours
Thomas Sydenham
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
Antonie Van Leeuwenhoek
He developed the first microscope with funding from the Royal Society. In 1702, he published images of what he called ‘animalcules’. These were germs
Lady Mary Montague
She observed the use of variation (inoculation) in Asia and introduced it to Britain
Thomas Dimsdale
He made inoculation popular in Britain in the 1700s
Edward Jenner
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
Charles Cagniard de la Tour
In the 1830s, he was an early critic of the popular ideas of Spontaneous Generation, which he thought was wrong
Edwin Chadwick
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
James Simpson
He developed the first popular anaesthetic, after discovering chloroform had the ability to make you unconscious for periods of time
Florence Nightingale
Improved hospital training and conditions after experiencing how bad things were in the Crimean War of 1853
John Snow
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
Joseph Bazalgette
After the Great Stink of 1858, he was employed by the government to improve the sewage systems in London
Louis Pasteur
He published his 4 principles of Germ Theory in 1861
John Tyndall
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
Robert Koch
“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
William Watson Cheyne
He developed antiseptic surgery and a surgical instrument we still use today the ‘ Watson Cheyne dissector’
Emil Von Behring
He discovered the Diptheria antitixin in 1901. At the time, this was a huge killer of children
Dr. Bastien
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
Paul Ehrlich
Leader of the research team that discovered salvarsan 606 in 1909. Tis was a successful chemical cure of syphillis
David Lloyd George
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
Archibald Garrod
Published a theory in 1902 that some diseases were caused by missing information in the body’s chemical pathways
Alexander Fleming
!n 1928, he wrote a paper on the healing substance that surrounded mould
Gerhard Domagk
Developed prontosil - a successful antibacterial drug - in 1932
Howard Florey and Ernst Chain
Developed penicillin using the principles of the research of Alexander Fleming
Nye Bevan
Health Minister in the Labour government of 1945 and after. He was influential in setting up the NHS
Rosalind Franklin, James Watson and Francis Crick
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
