Edexcel School History Project Syllabus B(1)

 Medical ideas and treatments combined

religion and science.

 Asclepions created – places of observation,

diagnosis and prognosis from doctors,
relaxation and treatment from the gods
Asklepios, Hygena and Panacea.
 ‘Father of Medicine’
 Created the Theory of the Four Humours,

where an imbalance of the bodily humours

caused sickness.
 Created the method of observation, diagnosis

and prognosis.
 He started the ‘professional doctor’ role, and

he and all doctors took the Hippocratic Oath

(and still do).
 Public health – public toilets, baths,
fountains, gymnasiums and aqueducts were
built; marshes drained, which stopped
malaria.
 However, cities were crowded so disease

spread fast
 Soldiers = large knowledge of anatomy and

successful surgery such as artificial limbs and

cataract surgery. The most cared for people
were soldiers, and most doctors trained at
stadiums.
 Followed Hippocrates’ method of observation,
diagnosis and prognosis
 Developed the Theory of the Four Humours

with the Balance of The Opposites to treat

symptoms e.g. phlegm was ‘cured’ by being
warm and dry.
 He dissected animals, and with use of a pig

realised that the brain controlled the body,

not the heart as previously believed.
 7th century – Hôtel Dieu founded

 1249 – First female nurses

 1300 – Corpses used for dissection –

knowledge of anatomy back to Roman
standard.

 1348-1350 – The Black Death

 Decline of public health – Roman way of life
almost eradicated. Excrement was thrown
into the street, open sewers or into rivers,
which was now the primary water source
(mostly ale was drunk instead). Wooden
public baths created, but became filthy as the
water wasn’t changed regularly.
 However, the Pope’s doctor advised a
balanced diet, and Alderotti told people to
stretch, wash and brush their teeth regularly.
 Medieval Kings passed public health acts
(although they weren’t well inforced), and
Lazar houses were created.
Monasteries
cared for sick
Women allowed to be
midwives
Fresh water was a priority;
sewers built
French church allowed
dissection
Individuals wanted more
knowledge e.g Roger Bacon
Some sick weren’t allowed to
be treated
10% success rate
Women not fully trained
New ideas compared against
the Bible
Only priests and monks
knew how to read
Imprisonment of Roger
Bacon for heresy

HELP HINDER
 Wiped out 1/3 of Britain’s population
 Arrived in fleas from abroad, which lived in
animals, material and humans in Britain.
 Symptoms included fever, delirium, buboes,
vomiting, and always resulted in death.

People believed it was caused by God’s anger,

superstition, miasma, astrology or ‘undesirable’
people. Cures included washing buboes in
vinegar and putting frogs on them.
Preventatives included burning all of the cats and
dogs, witchcraft and flagellants whipping
themselves to escape God’s wrath.
 1446 – Guttenburg’s Printing Press – relieved
Church’s control

 1543 – Versalius wrote “The Fabric of the Human

Body”, disproving Galen

 1575 – Fabricus showed how to set bones

correctly

 1665 – The Great Plague

 1685 – Charles II died of a stroke, allowing Paré

to promote treatments.
 William Harvey – showed veins only carry blood,
not blood and air; proved blood isn’t constantly
produced by the liver, but is circulated (Galen’s
theories) and had ideas about capillaries but no
proof.
 Andreas Versalius disproved Galen by the body
containing muscles and nerves, facts about
organs eg the liver not having lobes, showing
that the heart’s septum doesn’t have holes and
previously thought and that humans have a
single jaw bone (Galen dissected animals, which
have 2 halves of a lower jaw).
 Ambroise Pare
 He was a french surgeon, who, on the battlefield,
ran out of oil to cauterize wounds. Instead, he
made a dressing from rose oil, egg whites and
turpentine. He closely observed his patients as he
believed they would die, but saw that the
dressing was a success, and much less painful
than the cauterisation!
 He used ligatures to tie off blood vessels after
amputation, which was more effective than the
hot oil.
 He also disproved that the Bezoar stone could
cure all poisonings and set up a Parisian school
for midwives.
 The reason discoveries of the Renaissance had a
limited impact was because medical advances
such as Harvey discovering about circulation, and
Versalius discovering that livers don’t have lobes,
was because this new information didn’t help
cure any diseases that were huge at the time,
such as cholera and diptheria, because Germ
Theory had not yet been created. However,
discoveries such as these did benefit to some
extent, because they disproved Galen, and this
along with Gutenburg’s printing press relieved
the Church’s stranglehold on medicine and
allowed more discoveries to take place.
  Sick quarantined (with well),
 Miasma blamed and people tied down to beds
 Dogs and cats - showing people understood
disease spread.
burned  Herbalism as a ‘cure’
 Sick mixed with well  People moved to countryside
 Superstition  Physicians, barber surgeons,
 Anyone could get the wise women, monks, witch
plague doctors
 Punishment from
 Hospitals to care
God believed
 Local authorities ordered clean
up – tar burned
 No cure  Mass graves
 Women became more involved
SIMILAR TO 1348 – primary care givers.

DIFFERENT TO 1348
 1798 – Smallpox vaccination invented by
Edward Jenner

 1861 – Germ Theory created by Louis Pasteur

People dying from:
Pollution and smoke
Animal waste and rubbish in the streets
Poorly ventilated houses
Contaminated and un-fresh foods
High population density spread diseases
STIs from prostitution
 In 1798, Edward Jenner realised that milkmaids
got cowpox, but not smallpox. He injected a boy
with cowpox, and then smallpox, and his theory
that the boy wouldn’t contract the deadly disease
was correct. This was because the ‘vaccine’ he
created was a weaker strain of smallpox.
 He repeated his test on humans, not animals
which was new at the time. Many were against
the idea because clergy claimed it was ungodly to
inject someone with fluid from a diseased animal.
 However, the government supported him with an
intial £10,000, then another £20,000 and paid
for the public to have vaccines. In 1872 the
vaccine became compulsory and in 1979
smallpox was eradicated.
 1854 – Crimea War

 1865 – Joseph Lister uses carbolic spray in

surgical operations

 1876 - an act was passed permitting women to

enter medical professions

 1884 – William Brockedon created a machine to

mass produce pharmaceuticals

 1909 – First Magic Bullet developed

 Florence Nightingale – War Minister asked Nightingale to oversee
a team of nurses to help improve conditions. She succeeded and
reduced mortality rate. After returning to England she set up
Nightingale Training School for Nurses at St Thomas' Hospital.
This meant there were high standards for nursing, and improved
hospital hygiene and decreased mortality rates by having airy,
non-crowded wards.

 Elizabeth Garrett-Anderson – She wanted to be a doctor, but

wasn’t allowed, so enrolled as a nurse and passed her exams at
the Society of Apothecaries. She created the New Hospital for
Women which specialised in gynaecology. This was the first time
a woman could be treated by another woman. Due to her work,
in 1876 an act was passed permitting women to enter medical
professions.
 Mary Seacole – She learned nursing skills from her mother and
was determined to be a nurse. In 1854 she wasn’t allowed to be
an Army Nurse in Crimea by the British Government, so she
funded herself. She established the British Hotel near Balaclava
 In 1884 William Brockedon created a machine to
make pills contain the same quantities of
ingredients at the same size – mass production.
The pills were sold to pharmacies, not
apothecaries.

 In 1909 the first Magic Bullet, Salvarson 606 was

discovered by Paul Ehrlich, one of the men on
Robert Koch’s research team. The drug was a
cure to syphilis, and was important because it
was the first time a specific cell could be
eradicated. Magic Bullets target the pathogens,
but damages no other cells.
 1918 – Lloyd George pledged half a million homes by
1933 for WW1 soldiers - ‘homes fit for heroes’.
 1919 – Ministry of Health created to look after
sanitation, health care, disease and training of
doctors nurses and dentists.
 1934 – Free School Milk Act – Free school meals for
poor children
 1942 – Beveridge suggested a Welfare State – social
security, free healthcare and schooling, council
housing and full employment
 1948 – NHS began
 1956 – Clean Air Act imposed smokeless zones in
cities to reduce smog
 In 1928 microbiologist Alexander Fleming discovered
penicillin in a discarded petri dish. The mould
stopped any other microbes growing around it; it was
the first antibiotic. He tested it on an eye infection,
and it worked. However, at the time this discovery
had a limited impact, because Fleming couldn’t use
the drug as he didn’t have funds. 10 years later,
Florey & Chain developed penicillin, as they had the
money, but this impact was limited again by the fact
that they couldn’t mass produce the drug.
 This all changed in WW2 when an American team
mass produced penicillin, as they recognised its
importance for soldiers. Until this point, penicillin
had a limited impact, but with its mass production it
was able to be shared worldwide, combat sickness
and save lives.
 1948 – The NHS – opened by Aneurin Bevan
 This meant there was free healthcare for all, with
vaccines and inoculations given, and as it was a
national scale, there was regulation of healthcare.
The scale also made a public push for progress,
as well as employing thousands.
 However, impacts became limited whenever there
was need for technological advancement, and
money shortages resulted in sections being
closed
 Due to funding shortages people had to pay for
prescriptions and dental care, so in reality it
wasn’t as free as first thought.
 In the 19th Century, Gregor Mendel showed
characteristics in pea plants, but wasn’t believed
because he didn’t have scientific evidence.
 In 1931 the electron microscope was discovered.
Using the new technology of this high power
microscope and x-rays, Crick and Watson discovered
the DNA structure in 1953.
 This was important because it meant that people had
a better understanding of genetic disorders and how
they could be treated, through means such as stem
cell research.
 In 1990 the Human Genome project was created to
map every gene in the body.
 Without the technology, the discovery wouldn’t have
been possible, nor would the information have been
able to be stored.