paper 2- Health and the People Flashcards
How did the collapse of the Roman Empire affect Europe?
medicine did not improve and if anything, got worse (AD500)
no money for aqueducts, baths etc.
much medical knowledge was lost.
Where did medieval ideas about health come from? (looking at Galen, Hippocrates and Arabic medicine)
Doctors studied Galen as his teachings fit the message of the church.
People believed in the Four Humours because of Hippocrates and Galen.
Using astrology to diagnose people became popular in Europe between 1100 and 1300 from Islamic medicine.
The idea that illness was caused by God prevented cures from being made.
Who would you go to in the Middle Ages for treatment, and what would they do?
Houses were crammed together and businesses were not in s separate location.
There was no clean drinking water and people threw their waste into the Thames or the streets.
Was the Christian Church a positive influence on the healthcare in the Middle Ages?
Didn’t allow dissection of humans, so hindered research about the human body.
Believed God caused disease and people shouldn’t be treated.
believed that human bodies were created to be perfect.
founded many hospitals.
Who helped surgery to improve in the Middle Ages?
Early 13th century- Hugh and Theodoric from Italy questioned Galen’s ideas .
realised pus was not healthy and dressing wounds in wine prevented infection.
1376- John of Arderne created an anaesthetic from hemlock, opium and henbane which could kill someone.
What factors influenced medieval surgery the most?
The Roman Catholic church banning human dissection.
No access to anaesthetic and the dangers of blood loss.
How did people respond to the Black Death?
(1348)
causes people thought:
Jews poisoning wells
Planets
Miasma
God
treatments:
people quarantined and drank mercury
How and why did medical ideas begin to change in the Renaissance?
doctors had access to original writings.
people based their knowledge of the human body through experimentation.
16th century, Protestant Christianity reduced the influence of the catholic church.
What new challenges were there to people’s health in the Industrial period?
peoples houses were closer together and pollution was strong
Has Florence Nightingale’s significance been exaggerated?
yes, in the sense that other people did similar things and were not credited.
Why was Joseph Lister more successful than Semmelweis at getting hospitals to clean up?
because people were more open to the idea
What were the main turning points in the creation of the Welfare State in Britain?
nhs
What factors have been key in the development of Public Health over time?
living conditions
government
etc
Who contributed the most to the development of penicillin, the first antibiotic?
Howard Florey as he took the drug to America to finally make it accessible to people.
Discovered how to purify penicillin between 1938 and 1940.
Brought to America in 1941.
Astrology
developed in Islamic medicine and brought to Europe between 1100 and 1300.
Alchemy
trying to turn metals into gold to find the elixir of life- lead to the invention of distillation and sublimation.
The Black Death
first arrived in Britain in 1348
January 1349, King Edward III closed parliament
The Great Plague
struck London in 1665
victims quarantined with a red cross
public spaces closed
bodies buried away in mass graves
Great Fire of London 1666
Doctors and Surgeons being taken more seriously
College of Physicians in 1518.
started licencing doctors in 1600.
London College of surgeons in 1800.
John Hunter
1728-1793
was present at over 2000 dissections in 12 years
in 1785, he treated an aneurysm by tying off the blood vessel.
This prevented an amputation.
Florence Nightingale
1820-1910
studied to be a nurse in 1849
Crimean war in 1853-185 reduced hospital death rates from 42 to 2%
published ‘Notes on Nursing’ in 1859
Set up the Nightingale School of Nursing.
Jenner and Smallpox
in 1751 there were over 3500 deaths as a result of smallpox.
Only prevention was inoculation.
Edward Jenner was born in 1749 in Gloucestershire
tested his theory on James Phipps in 1796.
published his findings in 1798
Vaccination became compulsory in 1853
Louis Pasteur
employed in 1852 to find out why sugar beet used in alcohol was souring.
proved there were germs in the air with a sealed jar of water and open one.
published ‘Germ Theory’ in 1861
1867 published evidence that germs caused disease
found anthrax and rabies vaccine in 1877
Robert Koch
Pasteur’s rival as Germany beat France in the Franco-Prussian War
found the anthrax bacteria in 1876
and the cholera bacteria in 1883 using agar jelly.
