A Revolution in Medicine Flashcards
All 47 cards in this deck
What is aseptic surgery?
Keeping germs out of the operating area altogether, by sterilising instruments, clothing and the theatre.
What is a 'magic bullet'?
A chemical drug that kills the specific microbe causing a disease without harming the rest of the body.
e.g. Salvarsan 606 (1909), developed by Ehrlich's team to treat syphilis.What was spontaneous generation?
The belief that microbes were created by decaying matter, rather than being the cause of disease.
Who published Germ Theory, and in what year?
Louis Pasteur, in 1861.
What did Koch's work on microbes add to Pasteur's Germ Theory?
He identified the specific microbes that caused individual diseases (e.g. TB in 1882, cholera in 1883), so vaccines and treatments could be developed.
True or false? Pasteur's Germ Theory was accepted in Britain straight away and quickly led to new treatments.
False. The cause of each disease had to be researched individually, so new vaccines only came in the 1880s and treatments later still.
What impact did the development of anaesthetics (1846) have on surgery?
Patients were more willing to have surgery, and longer, more complex operations beyond amputations became possible.
What impact did antiseptics have on surgery in the nineteenth century?
They greatly reduced infection — a major cause of death after operations — so operations became safer and survival rates improved.
What did the Public Health Act of 1875 make compulsory?
Local councils had to provide clean water and deal with sewage and rubbish.
Why was the 1875 Public Health Act significant for prevention?
It showed central government taking responsibility for public health nationwide, so policies could be enforced everywhere.
What did John Snow prove in the 1854 cholera outbreak in London?
That cholera was water-borne, spread by infected water, not by miasma.
What happened when the handle of the Broad Street pump was removed in 1854?
No more cases came from the pump, and that local outbreak ended (it was already slowing).
Who was Joseph Bazalgette?
The engineer appointed to build London's new sewer system, which drastically reduced cholera epidemics.
True or false? Snow's findings were accepted immediately and cholera prevention changed at once.
False. Without Germ Theory to explain the link, many still blamed miasma, and government action such as the new sewers came later.
What did Pasteur's Germ Theory (1861) show about decay?
That microbes carried in the air cause decay, rather than being produced by it, so spontaneous generation was wrong. He believed germs caused disease too, but could not yet prove it.
Give one method Robert Koch developed that helped scientists identify microbes.
Growing bacteria on agar jelly, or staining bacteria with chemical dyes so they showed up clearly under a microscope.
Why were improved microscopes important for Germ Theory in the nineteenth century?
By the mid-1800s microscopes were good enough to show microbes clearly, which made the work of Pasteur and Koch possible.
What antiseptic did Joseph Lister use from 1865, and how?
Carbolic acid: on dressings, wounds and instruments, and later as a spray. Deaths from infection after operations on his wards fell sharply.
How did John Snow find the source of the 1854 cholera outbreak in Soho?
He marked every cholera death on a street map and saw that they clustered around the Broad Street water pump.
What was later found to have contaminated the Broad Street pump?
Sewage seeping into its well from a cesspool only a few feet away.
Why did the 1848 Public Health Act do little to prevent cholera?
It was mostly voluntary: towns could set up local boards of health to improve water and drains, but most were not forced to, so few did.
What vaccine did Pasteur produce in 1885?
A vaccine against rabies — the first laboratory-made vaccine used on a human, the boy Joseph Meister.
Who was Paul Ehrlich, and what did his team find in 1909?
A scientist trained in Koch's team; after testing hundreds of arsenic compounds, his assistant Hata found the 606th, Salvarsan 606, killed the syphilis microbe.
What were everyday medical treatments and remedies like in the early nineteenth century?
Largely unscientific: a few worked, such as opium for pain, but others were done out of tradition, such as bleeding, and there was no one agreed treatment for a disease.
Who was James Simpson, and what did he introduce in 1847?
An Edinburgh professor of midwifery who introduced chloroform as an anaesthetic, after testing it on himself and his friends.
True or false? Anaesthetics made surgery safer straight away.
False. Surgeons operated for longer and deeper without understanding infection, so deaths from infection and bleeding rose in the 'Black Period' of surgery.
Whose work gave Lister the idea that germs caused infection in wounds?
Louis Pasteur's Germ Theory (1861); Lister applied it to surgery and published his results in 1867.
Give one reason surgeons opposed Lister's antiseptic methods.
Many did not believe something as small as a germ could do so much damage, and still believed in spontaneous generation.
What did Edwin Chadwick's Report on the Sanitary Conditions of the Labouring Population (1842) argue?
That filthy living conditions caused disease, and that clean water, drainage and rubbish removal would make the poor healthier and cut the cost of poor relief.
Give two public health problems in industrial towns in the early nineteenth century.
Overcrowded back-to-back housing and no clean water supply; sewage from cesspits often leaked into the water people drank.
What was laissez-faire?
The belief that government should not interfere in people's lives or the economy; it held back public health reform in the nineteenth century.
What was the Great Stink of 1858?
The hot summer when the sewage-filled Thames smelled so badly that MPs could barely work in Parliament; it persuaded government to fund Bazalgette's new London sewers.
True or false? Pasteur developed his Germ Theory while investigating the causes of human disease.
False. He was investigating why liquids such as beer and wine went sour; only later did he and Koch apply Germ Theory to disease.
True or false? Lister's carbolic acid was used to kill germs in the wound, not to take away the patient's pain.
True. Carbolic acid was an antiseptic; chloroform, used by Simpson, was the anaesthetic that removed pain.
How did chance help Pasteur's team develop vaccines in 1879?
Chickens were accidentally injected with an old, weakened chicken cholera culture. They survived and were then immune to fresh germs, showing that weakened germs could give protection.
What did Pasteur demonstrate in public in 1881?
His anthrax vaccine: vaccinated sheep survived a dose of anthrax germs while unvaccinated ones died. Reports spread quickly by telegraph.
Who developed an antitoxin to treat diphtheria, and when?
Emil von Behring, one of Koch's team, in 1890; the antitoxin neutralised the poison the diphtheria germ produced.
How did John Tyndall help Germ Theory win acceptance in Britain?
In the 1870s the physicist lectured that ordinary air carried microbes and publicised Koch's work, arguing against Charlton Bastian, an influential defender of spontaneous generation.
Who carried out the first major operation in Britain under ether, and when?
Robert Liston, who amputated a leg at University College Hospital, London, in December 1846. A dentist, James Robinson, had used ether to pull a tooth two days earlier.
Give one drawback of ether as an anaesthetic.
Any one: it irritated the lungs, making patients cough; it often made them vomit; it was highly flammable.
Who was Hannah Greener?
A 15-year-old who died in 1848 after being given chloroform for the removal of a toenail. Her death increased fears about chloroform, because no one yet knew how to judge a safe dose.
Why did Queen Victoria's use of chloroform in 1853 matter?
She was given it during the birth of Prince Leopold, which made anaesthetics respectable and helped overcome opposition to them.
Give one religious objection to using anaesthetics in childbirth.
Some believed pain in childbirth was God's will, so it was wrong to take it away.
What happened when Lister treated Jamie Greenlees in 1865?
The 11-year-old had an open (compound) leg fracture, which normally became infected and ended in amputation. Lister treated the wound with carbolic acid; it healed without infection and the boy went home about six weeks later.
Which Leeds surgeon was one of the first in Britain to wear rubber gloves for operations?
Berkeley Moynihan, in the 1890s, as part of aseptic surgery alongside gowns, masks and sterilised instruments.
Why were politicians more willing to pass the 1875 Public Health Act than earlier laws?
The Second Reform Act of 1867 gave many working-class men in towns the vote, so parties competed for their support by promising healthier living conditions.
When did cholera first reach Britain?
In 1831, arriving at the port of Sunderland. Later epidemics followed in 1848–49, 1853–54 and 1866.