Progress in medicine in the mid 19th century Flashcards
(34 cards)
What were the reasons for a lack of understanding of the causes of disease?
- Four humours
- Miasma
- Spontaneous generation
- Technology
- Funding
- Attitudes
How were people treated based upon the four humours?
With opposites e.g. phlegm then chili which is hot and dry
What was miasma theory?
The theory that bad smells and air caused disease
What was spontaneous generation?
The theory that rotting material causes maggots, flies and disease
What was the issue with technology?
If microscopes had been stronger, perhaps scientists would have been more curious about germs
What was the issue with funding?
The government did not feel responsible for R+D and hospitals usually relied on charity funding, meaning that there was little money left over for research
What was the issue with attitudes?
Many doctors wanted to keep doing what they had always done; they didn’t want to have to learn new ways
What conditions did Florence Nightingale find on her arrival to Scutari during the Crimean war in 1854?
- Patients sharing a bed or on the floor
- Patients infested with lice and fleas
- Diseases like cholera and typhoid were common
- It was difficult to get medical supplies, with food supplies being limited and of poor quality
- The roof leaked
- Wards were infested with mice and rats
What changes did Nightingale make to Scutari?
- Cleaned all surfaces, equipment and bedding
- Improved the food
-Used funding in Britain to buy new supplies - Constantly checked in on patients during the night (where her nickname “the lady with the lamp” comes from)
- Opened windows to improve air flow through wards
What did Nightingale do on her return?
She was seen as an expert on nursing and hospitals, due to reports of her work being published in newspapers in Britain. At this stage she was less of a frontline nurse and more of a manager. In 1859 she published notes on hospitals and notes on nursing
When did Sir Humphrey Davey discover that nitrous oxide or “laughing gas” reduced the sensation of pain?
1799
When did dentists use laughing gas?
1840s
Who performed the first successful surgery using ether in 1846 and where?
Senior Surgeon John Collins Warren and Boston Massachussets
When J.R.Liston use ether?
1847
Who argued for the need of hand washing in 1847?
Hungarian doctor, Ignaz Semmelwies
Who discovered chloroform in 1847?
James Simpson
Why was the use of chloroform as an anaesthetic widely accepted in 1857?
Queen Victoria used it for her 8th childbirth. It then becomes standard surgical practice
What progress did nitrous oxide or “laughing gas” make?
Patients couldn’t feel pain
What were the problems with nitrous oxide or “laughing gas”?
- Dosage
- Patients remained conscious
What progress did ether make?
- Unconscious patients
- Doctors were willing to use it
What were the problems with ether?
- Vomiting
- Irritated lungs
- Flammable and operating theatres were lit with candles
- Patient slept for hours or days due to dosage
What were the problems with chloroform?
- The Christian Church opposed chloroform for childbirth
- Unknown effects on the baby
- Dosage - too much kills - John Snow invented the chloroform inhaler
- Unconscious patients were thought to be more likely to die than conscious ones
- Surgeons attempted deeper, longer operations
What progress did chloroform make?
- Unconscious patients
- Better side effects
What did Edwin Chadwick argue in the Report on The Sanitary Conditions of the Labouring Population of Great Britain and when?
- 1842
- Slum housing, inefficient sewage and impure water were causing unnecessary deaths
- Middle-class people lived longer because they could afford to have their sewage removed and fresh water piped into their homes. The average lifespan of the professional class in Liverpool was 35 whilst it was only 15 for the working class
- The private companies that removed sewage and supplied water were inadequate and that the government should do these - “a supply of piped water and a new sewage system using circular, glazed clay pipes and a relatively small bore instead of old, square, brick tunnels”
