Medicine Through Time

By Miss Nortonwww.SchoolHistory.co.uk

What are factors?

• Factors are the causes that have made things happen in the history of medicine.

• They are different influences on the development of medicine.

• Each factor plays an important role in medicine’s changes over time.

• Factors can help or hinder change.

How do factors work?

• Almost always the factors work together to produce or prevent development in medicine.

• Although we will examine them separately remember that it would be very unusual for a single factor to alter the history of medicine.

How do we examine factors?

• Identify the factors - see how they worked together - examine which was most important, if any.

• For example - Penicillin

Second World War

The need for an antibiotic

Individuals - Fleming, Florey and Chain

Chance - the discovery of mould!

So what factors play a part in Medicine?

• Warfare• Governments• Religion• Chance• Individuals

Warfare

• War increased the need for medicine - without effective medicine there would be no army to fight!

Roman army hospitals

Paré’s ointment and ligatures

Nightingale and the conditions in hospitals

Penicillin

X-rays & Skin grafts

Governments

• A government needs to get involved in medicine if it wants to stay in power.

• Public Health means health for all, controlled by the government.

Romans - aqueducts, baths

19th Century - Public Health act

Mass vaccinations

1948 Start of NHS

Medieval towns - Plague

Industrial Cities - cholera, typhoid, high death rates

Religion

It spread ideas and education

Provided care for the needy

Kept the ideas of Galen

Some helped as they were called by God

Prevented dissection

Prevented new ideas as Galen’s fitted the Churches teachings

Dissection allowed around 1400 - Protestantism began

Chance

• Chance has played a large role in medicine• What if Pare had not run out of oil?• Pasteur’s work on Chicken cholera was an

accident.• What if Fleming had not seen the mould?

Or what if he had cleaned up?

Individuals

• Hippocrates - father of modern medicine• Galen - Roman creator of medicine for

1500 years.• Vesalius, Pare, Harvey - the new men of the

Renaissance

Individuals

• Nightingale, Simpson, Lister - nursing, anaesthetic and antiseptic

• Koch and Pasteur - where does disease come from?

• Fleming, Florey and Chain - penicillin

Other Factors

• Communications - new methods of sharing ideas, and of stopping ideas!

• Science and Technology - new poor technology prevents advances, new machines, such as microscopes help it

• Conservatism - the desire for no change can stop good ideas from spreading

Factors

• Factors are essential - without them nothing would happen.

• All the factors play a role in medicine, helping and hindering.

• In groups examine the following questions -• Which factor do you consider the most important

and why?• Which factor advanced medicine the most and

why?• Which factor held medicine back and why?