Download Medicine in the Victorian age

Medicine in the
Victorian age
1837 – 1901
By Becky Akbar
Contents
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Context
19th Century diseases
People responsible for modern medicine
Florence Nightingale
Medical Breakthroughs
Context
• In the Victorian era medical people includes both
– Practitioners who believed in bloodletting as a cure for their patients.
– Many people though that they could be cured by prayer.
– Visionary doctors who made amazing discoveries regarding disease.
• In the Victorian era, if you weren’t feeling very well, there were lots
of people who could help you
– There were doctors with educations looking after patients.
– There were chemists who gave medical advice for a fee.
– And even sometimes homemade cures passed between neighbours.
• Unfortunately, some of the people who claimed to have medical
knowledge ended up causing an ill person more harm than good
because some people didn't understand what causes disease.
19th Century Diseases
• Chicken Pox: common disease in children, highly contagious
• Cholera: Highly infectious, caused by drinking contaminated
water
• Diptheria: another childhood disease, which makes
breathing hard
• Polio: Attacks the spinal cord and brain, resulting in
temporary paralysis.
• Consumption: (tuberculosis) the bacteria that causes it is
found in milk and other foods
• Small pox: especially fatal in small children, blisters appear
over the body and can make it difficult to breathe
People responsible for modern
medicine
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Elizabeth Garrett Anderson (9 June 1836 – 17 December 1917)
– First woman doctor in England.
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Joseph Lister (1827-1912)
– who perfected the microscope,
– discovering shape of blood corpuscles
– Joseph Lister is the surgeon who introduced new principles of cleanliness which
transformed surgical practice in the late 1800s
– He read Pasteur's work on micro-organisms and decided to experiment with using one
of Pasteur's proposed techniques, that of exposing the wound to chemicals. He chose
dressings soaked with carbolic acid (phenol) to cover the wound and the rate of
infection was vastly reduced. Lister then experimented with hand-washing, sterilising
instruments and spraying carbolic in the theatre while operating, in order to limit
infection.
•
Louis Pasteur (1822 - 1895)
– Pasteur was a French chemist and biologist who proved the germ theory of disease and
invented the process of pasteurisation.
– He was able to demonstrate that organisms such as bacteria were responsible for
souring wine and beer (he later extended his studies to prove that milk was the same),
and that the bacteria could be removed by boiling and then cooling the liquid.
•
Mary Seacole (1805- 1881 )
– She set up and operated boarding houses in Panama and the Crimea to assist in her
desire to treat the sick. Seacole was taught herbal remedies and folk medicine by her
mother, who kept a boarding house for disabled European soldiers and sailors
– She was well know for her Crimean War battlefield nursing and her Cholera treatment in
Panama
•
John Snow (1813-1858)
• During the Cholera outbreak of 1854 he was able to prove that cholera was a water
borne disease and proved the fact by removing a pump handle in Soho. He
recommended boiling water before use to make it better.
• Snow was also a pioneer in the field of anaesthetics. By testing the effects of controlled
doses of ether and chloroform on animals and on humans, he made those drugs safer
and more effective
•
Sir James Young Simpson (1811-1870)
• Was a Scottish doctor and an important figure in the history of medicine. Simpson
discovered the anaesthetic properties of chloroform and successfully introduced it for
general medical use
Florence Nightingale
• Florence Nightingale was born on the 12th of May
1820 . Florence Nightingale was the founder of
modern nursing.
• Soldiers who were injured in the Crimean War
were taken to hospitals. Many ended up dying
from the diseases they caught in hospital. She
changed the death rates of soldiers from 42% to
2% because she kept the hospitals clean, flushed
out the sewers and improved ventilation.
Medical Breakthroughs
• Importance of cleanliness in hospitals (and
life)
• Development of microscope
• Use of anaesthics
• Pasteurisation
• Development of X ray machines
• Understanding of how disease spreads
Conclusion
• Because the standards for cleanliness and medicine in the
Victorian era were very important in order to successfully
fight largely unknown, unseen enemies, they can still prove
useful today for people who suffer from chronic disorders
of all sorts.
• These medical measures are often good at protecting small
children from infections or diseases that their parents had,
and also to help the patient not get it again as their
surroundings improved by increased ventilation and
systematic cleansing.
• While the Victorian era is often known for its quack cures
playing on new cultural knowledge and ignorance, Victorian
medicine still has a lot to offer to those willing to apply
some common sense.