Key Individuals - Medicine

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-Careful observation before making a diagnosis.

-Used Observation and Reason (Looking and Thinking).

-Thought disease occurred when the humours fell out of balance.

-Hippocratic Oath: Doctors should care for patients to best of their ability.

-Ideas were a mixture of common sense and inaccurate facts.

-Believed good diet and exercise helped.

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Claudius Galen

-Greek Physician, theories used in medicine for 1,500 years.

-Improved study of anatomy by careful dissection and observation.

-Skilled surgeon, capable of operations others couldnt perform.

-Followed Hippocrates' theory of 4H, introduced further idea of opposites.

-Lead to developments in the way that people were treated. 

-Thought dissection was important. Experiments lead to improvements in knowledge & understanding about the structure of the body and how it worked.

-Proved the brain controlled speech and not the heart.

-Heavily took notes and studied the body in detail.

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William Harvey

-Studied circulatory system,discovered how the heart would pump blood around the body.

-Discovered surgical clamps for the veins, knew nothing about blood groups.

-1628 published theories in An Anatomical Study of the Motion of the Heart and of the Blood in Animals. Explained how blood circulated around the body.

-First to suggest humans & other mammals reproduced via the fertilisation of an egg by sperm.

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Andreas Vesalius

-Studied anatomy, secretly robbed bodies from graves to study their anatomy.

-Corrected over 200 of Galen's mistakes.

-1543 published a book about anatomy, 'The Fabric of the Human Body'

-Wrote pamphlet on bloodletting, it was supported by his knowledge of the blood system.

-Showed how anatomical disection could be used to test theory, also underlined the importance of understanding the structure of the body in medicine.

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Florence Nightingale

-Felt that God was calling her to do some work, wasn't sure what it should be.

-1851 went to Germany for 3 months of nursing training.

-Allowed her to become superintendend of a hospital for gentlewomen in Harley Street in 1853.

-1860 established the Nightingale Training School for nurses at St Thomas' Hospital in London.

-Theories published in 'Notes on Nursing' 1860, hugely influential and her concerns for sanitation established practices which are still in existence.

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Edward Jenner

-English doctor, founder of smallpox vaccination.

-1796 James Phipps. Inserted pus from cowpox pustule into incision on his arm.Testing his theory that milkmaids who suffered from cowpox never contracted smallpox.

-Told Royal Society 1797, told his ideas were too radical and needed more proof. 

-Results finally published after he experimented on several other children, including his son.

-His work progressed the understanding of disease. made important step in understanding.

-Enabled us to stop people from getting disease.

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Louis Pasteur

-French chemist and biologist who proved the germ theory of disease & invented pasteurisation.

-Able to demonstrate that bacteria were accountable for souring wine and beer, and that bacteria could be removed by boiling and then cooling the liquid - pasteurisation.

 -Theory proved that germs attack the body from the outside. 

-Extended theory to explain the causes of many diseases and their prevention by vaccination - e.g Anthrax and Tuberculosis.

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Robert Koch

-Worked on anthrax and tuberculosis and further developed the work of Pasteur.

-Found out anthrax microbe produced spores that lived for a long time after an animal had died.

-Proved spores could then develop into the anthrax germ and could infect other animals.

-1878, identified the germ that caused blood poisoning and septicaema.

-Knew infected blood contained septaecemia germ, couldn't see them under microscope.

-Developed research techniques that others could use throughout the world.

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Elizabeth Blackwell

-First female doctor in the United States and first woman to graduate from medical school.

-Trained women to be nurses and sent them to the Union Army.

-Established a Women's Medical College at the Infirmary to train women, physicians and doctors.

-Not a huge impact but she opened doors for opportunity for many female doctors.

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Elizabeth Garett Anderson

-Physician and polotical campaigner. First Englishwoman to qualify as a doctor.

-Enrolled as a nursing student at Middlesex Hospital, attended male classes but was barred after complaints from other students.

-1865, passed the Society of Apothecaries exams and gained a certificate, enabled her to become a doctor.

-1866 established a dispensary for women in London.

-In 1870 she was made a visiting physician to the East London Hospital.

-1872, founded the New Hospital for Women in London.

-1876, act passed allowing women to enter the medical professions.

-Member of suffragette movement.

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Edwin Chadwick

-Associated with public health advances during Victorian period.

-Used position in the Poor Law Commission to induce government to invenst in public health schemes.

-Britain's premier pioneer in publich health reform.

-Sanitary Report of 1834, established connections between overcrowding and disease led to creation of the Public Health Act of 1848.

-Report contributed to 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act, medical officers were appointed to workhouses, providing basic medical care for the poor.

-1875 second Public Health Act, calling for a complete overhaul of London's water and sewer systems was passed.

-One of the most important public health activists of the 1800's.

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William Farr

-Used information about deaths and marriages to identify, FOR THE GOVERNMENT where death rates were highest and what people died of.

-Helpful as it showed links between high death rate and unhealthy living conditions.

-Shamed some towns into improving public health.

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John Snow

-British physician, identified the source of a cholera outbrake in 1854.

-Everyone thought chloera was airborne. Snow didn't accept this.

-Published his ideas in an essay 'on the Mode of Communication of Chloera' in 1849.

-Able to prove his theory in August 1854, Cholera outbreak in Soho.

-Water pump in Broad Street was the source of the disease.

-Had pump removed, cases of Cholers immediately began to reduce.

-Snow's 'Germ Theory' wasnt widely accepted until the 1860's.

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Joseph Bazalgette

-Chief engineer to London's metropolitan board of works in mid 19th century.

-London was suffering from recurring epidemics of Cholera.

-Hot summer of 1858 created the 'Great Stink of London'.

-Lead to laws enabling the board to begin work on sewers and streer improvements.

-1866 most of London was connected to a stable sewer network devised by Bazalgette.

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Paul Ehrlich

-Discovered that if certain dyes could stain bacteria, maybe certain chemicals could kill them.

-Set up private lab and a team of scientists.

-By 1914 they had discovered several 'Magic Bullets', compounds that had a specific attraction to disease-causing microorganisms in the body, and that would target them, and kill them.

-Methylene Blue (for Malaria), Trypan Red (for Sleeping Sickness), and Salvarsan (for Syphilis).

-Salvarsan was more effective than the other two.

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Alexander Flemming

-Bacteriologist, best known for his discovery of Penicillin.

-In 1928, while studying influenza, he noticed mould had developed on a set of culture dishes being used to grow Staphylococci.

-Florey and Chain developed Penicillin further so that it could be produced as a drug.

-By 1940's it was being mass produced by the American drugs industry.

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Florey and Chain

-Scientists that stumbled across Flemming's research papers, intrigued by his findings.

-They were sure that if Flemming was right, this discovery could save alot of lives, prevent pain and make it much easier to fight infectious diseases and prevent other infections.

-They developed a system of growing penicillin, which tested it's effectiveness on mice.

-Tests were successful, became convinced it would cure many.

-They were unable to expand on development of the drug, mass production wasnt financially possible at the time.

-Florey and Chain had discovered a drug that combated the spread of infection, and allowed a chance for recovery.


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Marie Curie

-Became fascinated by rays that were recently discovered by Wilhelm Roentgen and Henri Becquerel.

-Roentgen discovered X-Rays and Becquerel found rays given off by Uranium.

-Marie began to do experiments.

-One day she examined a material called Pitchblende.

-Expected there to be a few rays from the uranium in it, but she found alot of rays.

-Discovered Radium and Polonium.

-Her research was crucial in the development of X-Rays.

-Curie helped equip ambulences with X-Ray equipment to the frontlines in WW1.

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Charles Booth and Seebhom Rowntree

-Beginning of 20th Century, no old age pensions, unemployment benefits, or family allowances.

-If the main wage earner died, whole family could be plunged into poverty.

-Gov expected to - maintain law and order, and protect country from invasion.

-Both wealthy businessmen, supported major investigations into the causes of poverty in Britain.

-Findings agreed on two key points:

:Up to 30% of population in cites were living in or below poverty levels

:Conditions were so bad people couldn't pull themselves out of poverty alone.

-People began to recognize that the gov. had a role to play. Political and social reforms took place.

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Sir William Beveridge

-British economist and social reformer, closely related with the development of the welfare state.

-1942, declared there were five 'giants on the road to reconstruction'.

-These were - poverty, disease, ignorance, squalor, and idleness.

-Wanted to defeat these giants.

-Proposed setting up a welfare state with social security, a nhs, free education & full employment.

-In the years after the war, Labour government tried to make this come true.

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Aneurin 'Nye' Bevan

-Chief architect of the National Health Service.

-Became trades union activist and studied in London.

-Was convinced by the ideas of socialism.

-During 1926 General Stike, he emerged as one of the leaders of the South Wales miners.

-1929, elected as the Labour Member of Parliament for Ebbw Vale.

-After Labour victory in 1945 general election, appointed minister of health, he was responsible for establishing the NHS.

-5th July 1948, gov took over responsibility for all medical services, free diagnosis and treatment for all.

-1959 elected deputy leader of the Labour Party.

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Watson and Crick

-Worked together on studying the structure of DNA.

-At that time Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin were using X-Ray diffraction to study DNA.

-Watson and Crick used their findings in their own research.

-April 1953, they published their discovery.

-Explained how DNA replicates and how inherited information is coded on it.

-Their discovery opened many doors for other biologists.

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