WJEC History: Unit 3 Changes in Health and Medicine - Prevention of Illness and Disease

Quarantine - Travelers spent up to a month outside town walls before being granted entry. Infected families were boarded up inside their homes.

Alchemy - A type of chemistry that aimed to find a way to turn regular metals into gold and to find a cure for all diseases. This led to the identification of some elements such as arsenic and bismuth.

Soothsayers - Local wise women who built up knowledge over generations. Often collected plants, herbs and stones and would carry them around in willow baskets.

Religion - Flagellants (people who whipped themselves in religious penance). Church leaders were skeptical of scientific theories and followed the teachings of Galen - who mentioned a 'creator' in his work.

Doctors - Very few, most learned through practice rather than by attending a medical school, relied on observation, and questioning. Used methods such as urine charts, astrology and the theory of the four humours, created by Hippocrates.

Cleaning - People disinfected their houses with herbs, burned the clothes of victims and held flowers to their noses to avoid bad air (miasma)

Edward Jenner and Vaccination

During the Industrial period, smallpox was a deadly disease. At the time, inoculation was used as a method of prevention. However, it was not completely safe.
1796 - Discovered milkmaids who had contracted cowpox never caught smallpox. Carried out an experiment on 8-year-old, James Phipps. Scraped pus from a cowpox pustule which he then inserted into a cut on Phipps' arm. He contracted cowpox. Once healed, he did the same with smallpox. Phipps never contracted smallpox.
1797 - Wrote up his experiment to the Royal Society but was told he needed more proof. He then proceeded to experiment on 23 other children, including his 11-month-old son. 
1798 - Work published by the Royal Society. Initially criticised due to the strong beliefs in inoculation. 
1807 - Jenner received £30,000 from the UK government for his work.
1840 - UK government banned inoculation, and cowpox vaccination became free.
1853 - Smallpox vaccine made compulsory in the UK
1979 - World Health Organisation declared smallpox extinct

Robert Koch

In the late 1870s, German scientist Robert Koch began to apply Pasteur's germ theory to human diseases. In doing so, he created the science of bacteriology.

He identified the bacteria which caused anthrax (1875), TB (1882) and cholera (1883). 

Koch also realised that antibodies, the body's natural defence mechanism against germs, could help to destroy bacteria and build immunity against disease. However, each antibody would only work against a specific bacteria. 

Medieval
The most famous medieval doctors in Wales were the physicians of Myddfai. This was a family who passed down medical knowledge through generations from the 13th to the 18th century. They made herbal remedies, operated on wounds and used astrology to treat their patients.

Modern
In Wales, Dr J W Power, the Medical Officer of Health for Ebbw Vale, was instrumental in getting courses in bacteriology set up in King's College, London.