20th Century Medicine: new treatments

Question 1

What is a magic bullet?

Answer 1

A chemical cure that attacks the microbes in the body causing a specific disease, while leaving the body unharmed

Question 2

Whose work did magic bullets build on, and how?

Answer 2

Robert Koch - he discovered the individual microbes causing specific diseases, so they could be targeted

Question 3

What was the name of the first magic bullet?

Answer 3

Salvarsan 606

Question 4

Who discovered the first magic bullet?

Answer 4

Paul Ehrlich

Question 5

What disease was Salvarsan 606 used to treat?

Answer 5

Syphilis

Question 6

What medicine was used in the early 1900s as a painkiller?

Answer 6

Aspirin

Question 7

What was the problem with Salvarsan 606?

Answer 7

It killed the patient

Question 8

Who discovered the second magic bullet?

Answer 8

Gerhard Domagk

Question 9

What was the name of the second magic bullet?

Answer 9

Prontosil

Question 10

What bacteria did the second magic bullet target?

Answer 10

The bacteria causing blood poisoning

Question 11

What was the name of the active ingredient in Salvarsan 606 and Prontosil?

Answer 11

Sulphonamide

Question 12

How is penicillin different to a magic bullet?

Answer 12

It was created using microorganisms, not chemicals

Question 13

In what year was penicillin discovered?

Answer 13

1928

Question 14

Who discovered penicillin?

Answer 14

Alexander Fleming

Question 15

How was penicillin discovered?

Answer 15

Alexander Fleming came back from holiday to find that Petri dishes on his laboratory bench had grown a mould causing bacteria around it to disappear

Question 16

What were TWO limitations of Alexander Fleming’s discovery of penicillin?

Answer 16

Any two from:

It did not work on deeper infections

It took a very long time to create enough penicillin to use

Nobody thought his article about penicillin in a medical journal was important

Fleming did not use penicillin on animals, let alone humans

Question 17

Who read Fleming’s article on penicillin in 1938?

Answer 17

Howard Florey and Ernst Chain

Question 18

How much funding did the British government offer Florey and Chain to further develop penicillin?

Answer 18

£25

Question 19

How many years of research could Florey and Chain undertake with funding from the US government?

Answer 19

5 years

Question 20

How many times more penicillin was needed to treat a human compared to a mouse?

Answer 20

3,000 times

Question 21

In what year did Florey and Chain have enough penicillin to test on one person?

Answer 21

1941

Question 22

Who was the first human to receive penicillin?

Answer 22

Albert Alexander - a policeman with septicaemia

Question 23

How many days did it take until Florey and Chain ran out of penicillin to use on Albert Alexander?

Answer 23

Five days

Question 24

What happened to Albert Alexander when Florey and Chain ran out of penicillin? Why was this important?

Answer 24

He died

It showed penicillin could keep people alive

Question 25

How did the US government help the mass production of penicillin from 1941?

Answer 25

They made interest-free loans to US companies to buy the expensive equipment needed for making it

Question 26

How many doses of penicillin did British companies make for D-Day in 1944?

Answer 26

Over 2.3 million doses

Question 27

How many units of penicillin were being produced in June 1943?

Answer 27

425 million units

Question 28

In what year was the first heart transplant carried out?

Answer 28

1967

Question 29

In what year was the first lung transplant carried out?

Answer 29

1982

Question 30

What treatment can now be achieved thanks to microsurgery?

Answer 30

Rejoining blood vessels and nerves

Question 31

How were anaesthetics improved in the 1930s by Helmuth Wesse?

Answer 31

They could be injected into the bloodstream, enabling precise doses and greater safety