Drugs pic getty images 199264845 83024

Progression of medicine throughout the 19th century

By mollycath

  • Humphrey Davy discovered the anaesthetic properties of laughing gas

  • Thomas Percival wrote first book on medical behaviour

  • Rene Laennec invented the stethoscope

  • William Beaumont studied digestive system through a hole in stomach

  • First issue of 'The Lancet' produced

  • Joseph Lister invented the multi lense microscope

  • The British medical association was formed

  • Pierre Louis argued that it was what was happening inside the body which was the important thing for doctors to look at

  • Jan Purkinje set up first university department in physiology

  • Theodor Schwann realised that animal matter was made of cells, not humours

  • Crawford W Long used ether whilst operating on neck tumor but never published

  • Edwin Chadwick argued that poverty caused disease

  • Horace Wells failed to demonstrate that laughing gas would allow painless surgery

  • Dr J C Warren removed a neck tumor using ether

  • Robert Liston removed the leg of a patient using ether - first use in Britain

  • Carl Ludwig invented the kymograph used to measure the pulse

  • James Simpson discovered chloroform

  • Ignaz Semmelweiss cut death rate in maternity ward by making doctors wash their hands in calcium chloride solution

  • First public health act, board of health and medical health officers for towns

  • Improvements in hospital hygiene, mainly due to Florence Nightingale

  • Florence Nightingale improved standards of hospital cleanliness and nursing care

  • Louis pasteur discovered that germs caused disease

  • Joseph Lister cut death rate from 46% to 15% by cleaning instruments, soaking bandages and spraying surgery with carbolic acid

  • Henry Gray wrote 'Gray's anatomy' with illustrations and people owned at home

  • Pupils were taught anatomy in school

  • Public Health act forced slum clearance, provision of sewers and clean water

  • Robert Koch discovered which bacteria caused septicaemia

  • Charled Chamberland found that weakened bacteria cells provided an inoculation to that disease

  • Louis Pasteur developed inoculation to anthrax

  • Robert Koch discovered which bacteria caused TB

  • Robert Koch discovered which bacteria caused cholera

  • Charles Chamberland found organisms even smaller than bacteria (viruses)

  • Carl Koller discovered local anaesthetic properties of cocaine

  • Louis Pasteur developed inoculation for rabies

  • Louis Pasteur became a research scientist

  • Aseptic surgery

  • Willhelm Roentgen discovered x-rays

  • Patrick Manson discovered that the vector for elephantisis is mosquitoes

  • Willem Einnthoven invented electrocardiograph used to measue heart activity

  • Docotrs held respected position in society

  • Karl Landsteiner discovered blood groups

  • Starling and Bayliss discovered the first hormone

  • Albert Calmette and Camille Guerin developed the BCG injection against TB

  • Free school meals to poor children

  • Schhol medical examinations made compulsory

  • Pensions introduced

  • National insurance for workers who fell ill was introduced

  • Only 495 women in medical register in Britain

  • Casimir Funk discovered vitamins and realised that some disease was caused by bad diet

  • Richard Lewisohn discovered that sodium citrate stopped blodd clotting

  • Emil von Behring developed the anti-toxin against diphtheria

  • Paul Ehrlich found magic bullets for malaria and sleeping sickness but the most important was Salvarsan 606 for siphilis

  • National Blood Transfusion Service set up