Medicine- 19th century Flashcards
What was spontaneous generation?
The belief that germs just appeared from nowhere
How did Pasteur’s swan neck experiment work?
When air entered the long neck, tiny particles (bacteria) were trapped in the long tube. If they could not reach the liquid, no souring took place. When the flask was tipped and the particles were able to reach the liquid, it would turn sour.
What’s pasteurisation?
a method which involves heating a liquid to a certain temperature, to kill bacteria in the liquid and thereby stop it from going bad
Which vaccines did Pasteur find and how?
- Chicken cholera- injected an old culture of cholera into chickens, which made them ill, but they didnt die, which therefore made them resistant to cholera injections
How did Koch put germ theory into practise?
- He isolated anthrax bacteria and injected it into healthy mice who then became ill and repeated this over for many more
how did Koch identify different bacteria?
grew bacteria using agar jelly in a Petri dish. He then used a dye to stain the bacteria so that it could be seen clearly under a microscope.
What were “magic bullets”?
ways of killing germs inside the body without harming healthy human tissue
What did Ehrlich do?
Ehrlich investigated chemicals that would kill syphilis. he tried hundreds of different compounds, but none worked. Eventually, when retesting some of the chemicals they had already tried, his assistant discovered that the compound salvarsan was effective. As it was the 606th compound they had tried, it was named Salvarsan 606.
why was Salvarsan 606 significant?
It was the first magic bullet - a chemical that could cure people of syphilis.
When and how did Simpson first use Chloroform successfully?
in 1847 he tried it out on himself and his friends, until they were all unconcious
What were the problems with using chloroform?
- Some surgeons preferred their patients awake so that they could fight for their lives.
- Many religious people felt that pain (particularly in childbirth) had been sent by God and should therefore not be tampered with.
- It was difficult to get the dose right. A 15-year-old called Hannah Greener died while having her toenail removed.
What did Lister do?
- in 1867, he discovered that carbolic spray was very effective in stopping wounds from getting gangrene. He developed antiseptic surgery by spraying medical instruments, and bandages with a solution of carbolic acid.
-In just three years, he reduced the death rate among his patients from 46 to 15 per cent
describe 19th century hospitals (4)
- new hospitals were paid for by large employers or the public
- new hospitals became less about care, more about research and training
- technology: - surgical theatres built, machines invented that could make tablets and stuff
- free wards for poor
What were treatments like at this time?
- in 1870 the London hospital Saturday fund began collecting donations from ordinary workers. If people who donated needed hospital treatment, their donation had already “paid” for their visit
- painkillers began to be sold
What did Florence Nightingale do?
- head nurse in a private hospital
- oversaw introduction of hot water for all floors and delivery of hot meals to patients
- set up Britain’s first nurse school in 1860
