Medicine

Medieval

Improvement

Crusades to the Middle East meant meeting Muslim doctors that were significantly more advanced than British ones.

Reasons for little change

War, lack of resources

Loss of knowledge, lack of communication

Superstition and respect for tradition

Widespread belief disease was caused by God

Church's encouragement to believe in the works of Galen

Only minor surgery performed, such as bleeding

Sick people quarantined

Islamic doctors made connection between dirt and illness

Modern

Discovery of "Magic Bullets"

X-rays, made more portable and less harmful due to a lower dosage of harmful rays. Many were manufactured.

Blood transfusions

In the renaissance, Harvey proved blood circulates and this encouraged experiment with transfusions.

 It sometimes worked and sometimes failed. Scientists didn’t know about different blood groups.

 Blood groups were discovered in 1901 by Karl Landsteiner. The discovery made transfusions successful.

 During the First World War vast amounts of blood was needed. On-the-spot donors were impractical.

Many soldiers bled to death in the trenches before blood could get to them.

 The search began for a better method of storage and transfusion. Doctors discovered how blood can be

bottled, packed in ice and stored where it was needed. This discovery helped to save many lives.

Penicillin

1 Fleming discovered mold killed germs. Writes articles but publishes them in book with an obscure name.

2 Chain and Florey begin research in Oxford after reading an article by Fleming. They experiment with mice.

3 Penicillin is first tested on a human being in Oxford.

4 U.S. and Britain fund production of penicillin.

5 Enough penicillin is produced to treat all the allied forces wounded in the D-Day invasion of Europe.