Describe how medicine and surgery improved between 1870 and 1900 Oliver Latham
The late 19th century was a period of enormous medical change and progress. Many diseases that had been fatal in 1800 were either treatable by 1900, or a cure would be found very early in the 20th Century using techniques developed by 19th-century scientists. Doctors, chemists, and scientists investigated medicine using new scientific technology made available by the , and made discoveries that changed the face of medical practice. Most important was the development of the ‘’ theory (1857) by Louis , a discovery that gave doctors and scientists the key to understanding, treating, and preventing disease.
There was huge progress in discovering the causes of disease in this period. For centuries common sense had told people that there was a connection between ‘dirty’ conditions and disease but they had yet to explian what the link was. In the early 1800’s it was explained by miasma or ‘bad air’ which was given off rubbish and decaying matter. In the 1850’s however, French scientist, Louis Pasteur became interested in micro – organisms and developed a theory that these ‘germs’, as he called them, were the cause of the problem. Aided by developments such as the microscope Pasteur discovered particular microorganisms growing in a vat of alcohol that was going bad. He was called in by other industries who had similar problems and concluded that ‘germs’ were responsible not only for milk turning sour, but also wine, beer etc going bad. Building on the work of Pasteur, the German doctor, Robert Koch, found a way to stain micro-organisms so that they could be observed more easily. Using his methods the causes of diseases were identified very quickly. In 1882, for instance, the bacterium that causes tuberculosis was discovered.
