Introduction
In the 18th century, lots of things happened in the world of science. The influence of the church had decreased, and many people believed that God was not responsible for things that happened on the earth. It became fashionable to seek out answers to questions relating to disease and illness. Society was also changing cities began to grow making them become dirty and disease-ridden making the understanding to disease and illness even more important. Surgery was a dangerous and usually fatal business. There were three main problems, bleeding, pain, and infection. Which became the root of most new theories.
Robert Koch
What did Robert Koch do and what impact did it have on ideas of treatment, prevention or ideas about causes of disease?
Robert Koch successfully identified that different germs caused many common diseases, he proved Louis Pastures theory of microbes to be right. Koch discovered that bacteria caused tuberculous in 1882. Koch made it easier for future scientists to study bacteria by developing a new method of growing them. He also developed a method of staining them with an industrial die to make them easier to see. Koch's theory that the identification of microbes caused particular disease was an enormous breakthrough before doctors had studied and treated symptoms and now the studied the disease itself. Progress was slow and it to a long time to convince people. Even the government rejected the theory at first. Despite all this the germ theory and the new study of bacteriology had an enormous impact on the understanding of what caused disease.
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What factors played a role in the development of Robert Koch's new ideas?
The improved science and better more powerful microscopes allowed him to make his discovery because he could look at microbes and see their different features clearly. Louis Pasteur early theory that microbes in rotting matter caused decay. This was the base line for Koch and his work basically proved and further developed this idea.
What opposition was there to Robert Koch's new ideas?
The British government rejected his ideas of the germ theory and did not listen to him. One Munich chemist asked Koch for a sample of cholera microbes then he drank them amazingly enough he did not get cholera because his stomach acid killed of the microbes. This did not help people to believe his ideas. His ideas took a long time to be accepted by medical profession.
Change and continuity and the role of Robert Koch
Robert Koch play an important part in the development in the germ theory there were lots of people who discovered things, but Koch made the breakthrough and his work was very in depth. A long with Louis Pasteur he was one of the most important individuals that made this happen.
By 1900 the mystery of what caused disease had been resolved but still a lot of people did not believe it. Robert Koch did not only change the worlds knowledge of what caused disease, but he also made many developments which helped future scientist study microbes. He developed a dye to stain microbes with which made them easier to see under a microscope, he came up with a method of growing microbes make them easier to study, and he also inspired others to look for microbes and study them. All this was change but because the world did not accept his theory very quickly in the short term there was a lot of continuity.
Robert Koch- first to apply light microscopy to bacteriology. This source is useful but not much can be inferred from it without a caption. It is interesting that before Robert Koch microscopes were not used to study microbes and bacteria.
Florence Nightingale
What did Florence Nightingale do and what impact did it have on ideas of treatment, prevention or ideas about causes of disease?
On 4 November 1854 Florence Nightingale arrived in Turkey with 38 nurses from England, she went to an emergency hospital to help were the conditions were terrible, there was hundreds of soldiers were injured in the fighting. The hospital was very basic, and the soldiers were not given good food and medicine to help them get better. When Florence Nightingale got to the hospital, wounded men were sleeping in overcrowded, dirty rooms without any blankets. Wounded soldiers often arrived with diseases like typhus, cholera and dysentery. At first, the army doctors who worked there did not want the nurses helping and told here to go away however she would not give in. Soon after they arrived, however, there was a very large battle and the doctors realised they needed the nurses' help. Florence Nightingale realised that if the doctors were going to allow her nurses to work then they had to do a very good job. Which she did at night she walked from bed to bed comforting the sick men, the called her an angle.
When Florence returned after the war to England, she was a national heroine. She had been shocked by the conditions in the hospital and began to campaign to improve the quality of nursing in military hospitals. She gathered a lot of information about food, death rates, and doctors' training in these hospitals. In October 1856 she met with Queen Victoria and Prince Albert and in 1857 she gave evidence to a Sanitary Commission. This helped with the setting up of the Army Medical College in Chatham in 1859. In 1859, Florence published a book called 'Notes on Nursing' which is still in print today. She also founded the Nightingale School and Home for Nurses at St Thomas' Hospital in London.
What factors played a role in the development of Florence Nightingales ideas?
The government played a key role because they gave her the money and funding, she needed to set up a nurse's school and to make changes to hospitals. Her publicity and good reputation when she came back from Crimea helped her to be able to make changes to hospitals quickly and people accepted her work quickly because she was a hero.
What opposition was there to Florence Nightingales new ideas?
Florence Nightingale did not experience a lot of opposition because everyone could see how desperate the situation of hospitals was however, she did get some small opposition when she first arrived in Crimea from the army doctors. They did not want her to intervene and because she was a woman, they thought that they could possibly let her run the hospital.
Change and continuity and the role of Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale played an important role in thee improvement of hospitals however she would not of been able to carry out her ideas if the government had not given her the funds.
Her improvements and ideas were quickly accepted and how hospitals looked changed very quickly. Also her nursing school and the changes in the way nurses changed and what nurses actually did was very rapid progress. There was not a lot of continuity but however her ideas did come to a bit of a stand still when she got drastically ill. Nightingale Nurse in Military hospital. This picture shows the crowded conditions of military hospitals. It also shows how the nurses is comforting the patient. On the left-hand side, you can hands reaching out to her.
Edward Jenner
What did Edward Jenner do and what impact did it have on ideas of treatment, prevention or ideas about causes of disease?
Edward Jenner was an English doctor. When he was young small pox was a serious disease, as if you caught it then you would most probably die. As Jenner grew up doctors started to think that if you were given smallpox and survived then wouldn't catch it again. So, Jenner ended up having smallpox given to him. They did it by grinding up smallpox scabs and blowing them up your nose. Jenner then had to stay in the stables where he had been given the smallpox until he got better. He said that a boy next to him died in the night as he caught it badly. Jenner slowly got better and was able to leave the stables. When he grew up, he decided that he was to find a cure for small pox.
One day a milk maid came to Jenner and told him that she had cowpox. She said that as she had cow pox, she couldn't catch small pox. He then decided to try this theory out and he mainly used a local 8-year-old boy with his experiments (named James Phipps), and he cut a slit in his arm and put a cowpox scab in. a week later he did the same again but this time he inserted a smallpox scab. Jenner kept a close eye on the boy and looked for any signs of smallpox scabs. After about a month he knew this theory worked and had proven it. He then went on to invent the world's first vaccine.
Although Jenner's findings had the potential to help rid smallpox once and for all, there were several rejections to it. Many were shocked or suspicious of the idea that cowpox could cure a disease such as smallpox. But on the other hand, there were doctors who didn't want to lose their income for giving vaccines. After a while vaccine were seen as dangerous, especially as doctors often used infected and non-sterile needles. After people started rejecting, Jenner published his findings on his own and wrote out his technique and tried to tell doctors to stop their methods and use his.
The British parliament was impressed with what Jenner had done and gave him £30,000 to use on a new vaccine clinic in London. In 1853 after smallpox had once again swept through many people. The government passed a law, the new law required everyone to have a vaccine against smallpox. It made vaccine not only compulsory but also free.
What factors played a role in the development of Edward Jenner's new ideas and methods?
The British government played an important role in promoting the vaccine in which Jenner created. They provided funding and set up a society to promote vaccination. Later, they made it compulsory for everybody. Also, another key factor was Jenner's observation and experimentation. Firstly, he observed the pattern of cowpox and smallpox in dairy maids. Secondly, he planned his experiment carefully and then repeated it several times so that he could be certain it had not been fluke.
Which factor was most influential in the development of vaccines?
Although certain groups of people were against vaccinations, there was another, very powerful group that were in favour of them. That group was the parliament. The British government favoured the new method of vaccination from the first half of the 19th century. In 1837-40 a smallpox epidemic broke out and 35,000 people died, in 1840 the government made inoculation a crime. Then later in the year 1840 the government agreed to provide children with vaccinations at the taxpayer's expense. In 1852 the government made smallpox compulsory. In 1871 Public Vaccinators were appointed. Then lastly in 1872 the British government began to enforce the compulsory vaccination. The reason why the government favoured Jenner's new ideas and methods was because it was safer and more reliable alternative to inoculation. It was also cheaper, because recipients of vaccines did not need to be put into quarantine, whereas those receiving the inoculation were in danger of spreading smallpox to other people.
What opposition was there to Edward Jenner's new ideas and methods?
There were many opinions about vaccinations. The church said that using animal infection in human medical trials is against God's will. The inoculators were not happy to see their businesses destroyed and that they will use their money and position in society to encourage the media to print negative things about vaccinations. The royal society refused to publish Jenner's ideas because there was a lot to opposition to them in the scientific community. This picture shows joseph lister testing his discoveries on James Phipps The picture shows how Jenner injected the cowpox and smallpox into James Phipps. Also, it shows that the boy was fairly young too.
Joseph Lister
What did Edward Jenner do and what impact did it have on ideas of treatment, prevention or ideas about causes of disease?
Joseph lister was an English surgeon. he had noticed that wounds became infected and realised that the flesh was rotting. He then read about Pasteur's work and he got the idea that germs may be the cause of infections, as if microbes in the air caused wine and vinegar to go bad, perhaps microbes caused flesh to rot. He then thought that sterilisation would save lives. So, he experimented with chemicals on the wards. Lister knew that carbolic acid was used in sewage treatments so he decided he would use carbolic acid to clean surgical tools. He also insisted that surgeons cleaned hands and bed clothes. One day a boy came into the theatre with a broken leg and lister decided not to cut off the leg as usual, but he decided he could prove what he believed. He did this by, instead of cutting the leg off he re set the bone and soak a bandage in carbolic acid and wrap it around the wound. This seemed to work because 6 weeks later the boy was able to walk again. This made people start to believe that what he had said was true. Also, they would no longer have to cut legs and arms and having a large risk of death, instead surgeons could repair it and wrap it in bandages that had been soaking in carbolic acid. After this experiment Lister then went on to make a carbolic spray machine which kept operating clean and sterilised. After this he detailed 11 different cases where carbolic acid had been used successfully in surgery. He published his discoveries and began persuading other surgeons to use the same methods, except some surgeons were not willing to use Listers methods and didn't believe that the air was full of germs. Overall Listers works spread more quickly than the germ theory. Some surgeons took on Listers methods and people started to have operations in sterile environments.
What factors played a role in the development of Joseph Lister's new ideas and methods?
Joseph lister compared his results to a recently published work of Pasteur, who identified germs as being responsible for decay. At this Lister thought that it could be the reason for flesh rotting so he then went on using the ideas of Pasteur to help him.
What opposition was there to Joseph Lister's new ideas and methods?
Although developments in anaesthetics and antiseptics helped to improve the effectiveness and availability of surgery, not everybody welcomed the changes. Anaesthetics allowed for deeper surgeries to be attempted. Before the introduction of carbolic spray, infection and bleeding became even bigger problem. The death rate actually increased, which seemed to suggest that anaesthetics were bad. People did not trust the technique.
The Victorians thought that pain relief was interfering with God's plan, particularly at child birth, which was meant to be painful. also, some doctors believed that patients were more likely to die if they were unconscious during the operation, rather than awake and screaming.
It took some time for doctors to accept that germs caused infection. Surgeons did not want to believe that they might have been responsible for the infections that killed their patients. Joseph lister supervises the use of the carbolic acid spray during one of his operations.
This picture shows the spray machine that Lister created and it in action. It also shows the cleanliness in the operation, e.g. clean sheets, clean hands, etc.
Conclusion
A lot of the individuals used new technology to help with their discoveries for example Robert Koch, and a few of them used earlier discoveries to build on. For some individuals the government was a big help for example Florence Nightingale, her ideas would not have come to anything without the government. Although other factors played a big part in the improvement of medicine, the individuals were most important because without them the discoveries would have never of happened. We think that The Big Question is correct as it asks, 'Did individuals make the difference?' We think this is true because all the individuals contributed in bringing the world into the future and making medicine better from then onward. Although there were a lot of opposition at the time of their discoveries, however in the long term their discoveries paid off and their discoveries is why medicine has come so far forward to today.
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