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Period: 1200 to 1500
Medieval 1200-1500
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Period: 1200 to
Belief in miasma
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Period: 1200 to
Belief in Galen's ideas
The four humours, theory of opposites, and other teachings -
1348
Black Death
Epidemic of the plague. Killed between 30-50% of Europe's population
Ideas about cause: God / sin. Magic. Stars misaligned. Miasma. Imbalance of humours
Prevention: Prayer, tithes, flagellants. Spells. Lucky charms. Clean streets, herbs and flowers, sit in sewers. Quarantine (some).
Treatment: Prayer. Herbal remedies. Bursting buboes. Blood letting. Eating rotten treacle, drinking urine. -
1450
Printing Press invented
Importance: Quicker and easier to make and circulate information. The church / monks no longer had such control over what was published. Access to books and pamphlets easier and cheaper. No longer all in latin - local languages used. More people learned to read as a result.
Consequence: helped spread Protestant ideas. Helped to lessen the grip of the Catholic Church on society. -
1492
Columbus 'discovers' the New World
Columbus lands in the Caribbean, thinking it's East Asia. Start of colonisation of the Americas by European powers.
Importance: access to new plants and flowers for herbal remedies. -
Period: 1500 to
Renaissance period 1500-1700
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1517
Martin Luther's 95 theses
Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of his church in Wittenburg.
Importance: start of the Protestant reformation in Europe.
Cause; spread of his ideas made easier by the printing press.
Consequence: one reason why Henry VIII was encouraged to set up the Church of England - leading to dissolution of the monasteries and closing of hospitals.
Consequence: start of lessening of Catholic Church's grip on society. -
1536
Henry VIII dissolution of monasteries
Closure of Catholic monasteries in England as a result of the English reformation and Henry setting up the Church of England.
Cause: partly influenced by Martin Luther and the European reformation (but not entirely - Henry had selfish reasons too).
Consequence - many hospitals were run by the monasteries and had to close. Some new ones were eventually set up by charitable organisations and run now by physicians, not monks. Start of proper medical hospitals. -
1543
Vesalius published 'On the Fabric of the Human Body'
Methodical observation of the body through dissection.
Cause: Padua university independent of the Catholic Church. More access to dissections.
Importance: contributed to detailed, accurate anatomical knowledge of the body.
Consequence: discovered many of Galen's teachings on anatomy were wrong. Start of lessening of reliance on Galen's teachings by medical community. Better training of physicians. -
William Harvey
Experimental method - discovered function of the heart and circulation of the blood around the body.
Importance: proved Galen's ideas about blood (produced by the liver and used up by the organs) wrong.
Consequence: inspired others to experiment and find out functions of other organs.
Limitation - not universally believed as challenged Galen.
Consequence - contributed to people no longer believing in four humours. Better training. -
Royal Society
Established to share scientific ideas. Public dissections, library, publication of journals eg 'Philosophical Transactions'. Published groundbreaking material like Hooke's 'Micrographia'.
Importance: improved communication and sharing of new scientific and medical ideas.
Limitation: only set up towards the end of the Renaissance, so no impact for most of that period. -
Great Plague
Epidemic of the plague - mostly in London, which lost around 15% of its population.
Ideas about causes: Miasma. God and superstition (some).
Prevention: plague doctors to find victims & take them to pest houses. Infected houses quarantined for 40 days. Fire pits in the streets to purify the air. Pomanders. The dead buried quickly in special 'plague pits'. Public gatherings banned, trade & travel ltd.
Treatment: herbal remedies. prayer. -
Thomas Sydenham
Sydenham published Observationes Medicae. Encouraged physicians to 'go to the bedside'. Take detailed medical histories and observe symptoms. First to classify illnesses into types based on common symptoms, e.g scarlet fever.
Importance: one of the final nails in Galen's coffin - look, rather than rely on outdated theory.
Importance: his books replaced Galen's as the most influential medical texts of the time. -
Van Leeuwenhoek first observed microbes
Called them animalcules.
Cause: invention of powerful enough microscopes.
Consequence: development of idea of spontaneous generation
Consequence: eventually - germ theory
Importance: start of the journey towards understanding the real cause of infections for the first time. -
Period: to
Belief in Spontaneous Generation
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Period: to
Industrial period
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Jenner discovers smallpox vaccine
Jenner infects the son of his gardener with cowpox, then smallpox and discovers the first vaccine.
Importance: saved millions of lives. Eventually led to smallpox being wiped out.
Limitations: nobody can prove why it works as germ theory hadn't yet been published. Nobody can develop any further vaccines. -
Jennerian Society starts to provide free vaccinations
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Robert Liston uses ether
First use of ether in the UK to anaesthetise a patient during surgery. -
James Simpson discovers chloroform.
Simpson discovers that chloroform is a better anaesthetic than ether. -
Smallpox vaccinations compulsory
The British Government makes smallpox vaccinations compulsory - although this isn't strictly enforced until 1872. -
John Snow and cholera
Snow discovers the cause of a cholera outbreak in Soho is waterborne. He shuts down the Broad Street Pump and ends the outbreak.
Importance: proves that cholera comes from dirty water (contradicts the main theory that it is caused by miasma).
Limitations: the government doesn't act on his theory for another 20 years or so. -
Florence Nightingale & Crimean War
Florence went to help nurse in the Crimean War. She cleaned up the field hospitals and saw a 40% drop in the number of deaths. -
The Great Stink
The pollution in the Thames cooks over a long hot summer. The stench is so bad Parliament takes only 18 days to make a new law designed to clean the river up.
Importance: Adds to Snow's claims that dirty water can cause disease. Starts the development of Bazalgette's sewers and the recognition that the government needs to get involved in public health. -
Pasteur's Germ Theory
Pasteur publishes 'germ theory' proving that microbes are carried in the air.
Importance: proved that spontaneous generation was wrong - microbes CAUSED decay, decay didn't generate microbes.
Consequence: Lister read the theory and started experimenting with keeping wounds and operating theatres clean.
Limitations: theory only focused on food and wine at this point. Pasteur wasn't a doctor, so more people believed the influential Dr Bastien instead. -
Lister starts sterilising
Joseph Lister read Germ Theory and started sterilising wounds and equipment in operating theatres with carbolic acid. Infection rates plummeted as a result.
Cause: Pasteur's germ theory.
Importance: helped prove Pasteur's theory could be linked to the cause of infections. -
Bazalgette's London sewer system is opened
In response to the Great Stink, government asks Joseph Bazalgette to design and build a new sewerage system for London. -
2nd Public Health Act
Makes it compulsory for councils to improve hygiene, water, housing conditions and bring in improvements such as street lighting and public parks.
Importance: one of the first government interventions in improving public health. The end of the laissez fair approach. -
Koch discovers bacteria for anthrax
Koch discovers the bacteria that causes anthrax in mice.
Importance: allows Pasteur to develop a vaccine for animal anthrax and other animal diseases. -
Pasteur's Germ Theory of infection
Pasteur developed his original theory to include the idea that Germs caused infections as well as decay.
Importance: allowed Koch to take his ideas and discover that different microbes cause different diseases. -
Koch & Petri
Koch and Petri work out how to grow bacteria in a petri dish full of agar jelly.
Importance: this makes it much easier to study microbes. -
Pasteur develops animal vaccines
Pasteur tests his theory by developing vaccines for chicken cholera, then anthrax and rabies.
Importance: first step in developing vaccines for human diseases
Limitations: no impact yet on human diseases. Needs others to take it and develop it. -
Koch discovers TB
Koch discovers the bacteria for tuberculosis.
Importance: shows that different bacteria cause different disease.
Consequence: vaccines for specific diseases can be developed once the bacteria causing it has been identified. -
Emil Von Behring develops Diptheria & Tetanus vaccines
First vaccines for diptheria and tetanus - developed.
Cause: Enabled by the previous work of Pasteur and Koch.
Importance: can now prevent some common human diseases. -
First x-rays developed
Roentgen, a German professor, discovered x-rays could pass through solid matter to show what was inside. -
Period: to
Modern period
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Salvarsan 606 - First magic bullet
Hata, building on Ehrlich's work, discovered Salvarsan 606 cured syphilis without damaging healthy cells. -
Fleming discovered penicillin
Accidentally discovered that a mould growing on a petri dish killed the bacteria on it...but couldn't isolate enough to use. -
Blood tests introduced
Easier and quicker diagnosis of many conditions. -
Prontosil discovered - bacteriostatic antibiotic
Domagk discovered that prontosil, a red dye, killed bacterial infections in mice - tested it on his daughter and cured her of blood poisoning. -
Florey and Chain conduct first human trials on penicillin
Albert Alexander got better but relapsed when the supplies ran out and died. -
Creation of the NHS
Healthcare free at the point of delivery to all, funded through taxation. -
Link between smoking and lung cancer realised
Doctors realise that smoking is a major cause of lung cancer after an alarming rise in cases. -
Watson & Crick discovered the structure of DNA
After seeing photos of DNA taken by Franklin & Wilkins, they work together to identify what DNA is and how it works. -
New scanning techniques developed
CT and MRI scans invented. Led to more advanced and accurate diagnosis of injuries than x-rays. -
Complete human genome mapped
Scientists from around the world worked together to map the entire human genome (all of our DNA).
