Beginnings of change

Key individuals

Anrdreas Vesalius

Carried out his own dissections in order to understand how the human body worked

Wrote ' Fabric of the Human Body' in 1543 which corrected over 300 of Galen's mistakes

Argued the important of doctors learning form dissections rather than books

Ambroise Pare

Army surgeon

Used ligatures to tie blood vessels to reduce blood loss

Invented a new way of sealing wounds on battlefiels instead of cauterising

William Harvey

Proved that blood circulates around the body using arteries and veins with valvues

Proved the heart acted as a pump for the system

His understanding of the circulatory system is the basis of what we know today

Methods of treatment

Traditional approaches

Praying

Wise women, who used herbs and charms

Herbal remedies

Astrology

Quackery

New approaches

Growing number of hospitals, started to treat sick rather than just providing hospitality

Many towns had pharmacies

New herbs and ingredients from around the world

Books on medicine for treating the family at home

Scientific approaches

Dishonest medical practices

Sold their own medicine that would have no effect

Most were travelling salesmen

Great Plague

What was it?

1665, Bubonic Plague returned to Britain

Carried by fleas, who were carried by rats who were attracted to cramped and dirty conditions in towns

Worst point in September 1665, over 7000 people died in one week

Beliefs about causes

People didn't understand what caused the Plague

Believed it was a punishment from God

Miasma

It was noticed that people living in poorer areas if the city were worst affected

Treatments

Balancing the humours

Bleeding patients with leeches

Burning herbs to banish foul air

Sniffing sponges soaked in vinegar

Preventative measured

Trades with affected towns was stopped

Infected houses had to be quarantined for 40 days

Plague doctors wore special suits with sweet-smelling herbs to protect them against miasma

Lord Mayor's orders

Designed to stop the spread of plague in London in 1665

People were employed to kill stray cats and dogs

Searchers had to identify houses where had died to plague

Watchmen supervised infected houses to stop people leaving

Growth of Hospitals

Public pressure led to infirmaries being set up for the poorest in society

Hospitals trained doctors and surgeons

By 1860, Londond had 36 specialist hospitals

Nurses had a more central role caring for patients, they were also trained for the first time often alongside doctors

Hospitals cleanliness improved

Florence Nightingale

Significant in bringing about change in hospitals

Challenged methods

Death rates plummeted from 42% to only 2% at Scutari during her time

Her work was widely reported in newspapers and books she publisehd which discussed hospital organisation

John Hunter

Heavily interested in dissection and gifted and anatomy

Set up Britain;s first nurse training school

Beacme and army surgeon in 1760

Set up a practice which trained many new doctors

Known as the father of scientific surgery

Vaccination and Innoculation

Small pox

Widespread in Britain in the 18th century

60% of people who caught it died

1796 - Jenner tests his theory by inserting pus taken from the cowpox pustule of a milkmaid into a cut on a boy's arm, they boy is later exposed to smallpox and is shown to be immune

1840 - Vaccination against smallpoc is made free to all children

1853 - Vaccination against smallpox is made compulsory

Eradicated in 1980

Edward Jenner

Innoculated patients against smallpox

Heard that molkmaids didn;t catch smallpox, he discovered that they caught cowpox, which was a much milder disease

Reasoned that it must make them immune to smallpox, he expiremented and proved it was true

Innoulaiton - Deliberately infecting with a disease to avoid a more sever case of it

Vaccination - Exposing the body to a weakended version of a microosganism that can cause disease, to develop immunity

Disagreed with some of Galen's work

Wrote 'Works on surgery' in 1575

Renaissance doctor

Significance - Pares treatments became more common in surgery, and it led to more lives being saved

Use drawings from artists to study the body

Where you more likely to survive disease in the Renaissance Era?

No reliable anaesthetics

Lack of sanitation

In the eighteenth century, more than half of all doctors were men who have served and apprenticeship

Only 4% of doctors had a medical degree from Uni

Royal college of physician since 1600, you could only practice if you had a licene

Doctos did beocme more skillful, and also thanks of Vesalius and Pare, they had a better understanding of the body and medicine

He practiced on dead bodies

Significance - he marked the end of barabric surgery, and created a new scientific period, which led to better survival rates

Significance - his discovery revolutionized the way we think of the heart, and his ideas rapidly spread

Stray cats and dogs

Publiuc health

Before

No sewage systems

Rates flourshed in the dirty conditions of towns

After

Bills or mortality were published to show the ocurse of diease

Houses were ordered to collect waste, which was then collected by rakers

Public latrines were provided over rivers so they would take away the waste

Infected households were boarded up

Significant, improved public health as led to cleaner environments

Black Death and Great Plague

Continuity

Still seen as a punishment from god

Streets were cleaned to remove filth

Miasma was thought to be the cause

Lack of proper treatments

Change

Money spent by governments to build public latrines and to clean up streets

Jews were no longer blamed

Significance - Paved the way for vaccines, savid millions of lives, also developed the first understadning of what caused disease