What significant changes took place in medicine and attitudes towards it during the 1920s?



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Great advances in technology and science brought new life-saving discoveries throughout the 1920s. Between 1920 and 1930, many scientists were laureates to the Nobel Prize in medicine and physiology.

In 1924, doctor Willem Einthoven was awarded the Nobel Prize for inventing the electrocardiogram. In 1928, Alexander Fleming rediscovered the fungus Penicillium notatum, the big discovery that changed modern medicine. In 1939, the substance penicillin was proved to have the ability to kill the infectious bacteria, hence, due to this discovery, the commercial production of penicillin was launched.

Herbert McLean Evans discovered vitamin E in 1922, and Vitamin D, along with its property that prevents skeletal disorders, was discovered by Elmer V. McCollum. In 1929 Christiaan Eijkman, Sir Frederick Hopkins were laureates to the Nobel Prize for discovering the vitamins A, B, C, K, and their subdivisions.

In 1930, doctor Karl Landsteiner was awarded with Nobel Prize for discovering the human blood groups. Later on, doctor Karl Landsteiner, in collaboration with scientists Levine and Wiener, discovered the Rh-factor in blood.

The year 1923 brought the Nobel Prize to doctors Frederick G. Banting and John Macleod for the discovery of insulin, while in 1927, doctor Julius Wagner-Jauregg was rewarded with the Nobel Prize for curing general paralysis induced by the malaria infection.


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