MYP History Medical Discoveries and Breakthroughs Notes

How Did Discoveries Transform Survival?

1. If you lived in the early 1800s, going to the doctor was risky. Painful surgery, dirty hospitals, and zero understanding of germs meant survival often came down to luck.
2. But during the nineteenth century, medicine shifted from tradition to science and survival changed dramatically.

Enlightenment Thinking: Medicine Challenges Old Ideas

1. Doctors began questioning ancient explanations from Galen.
   1. Galen was a Greek doctor who lived in the Roman Empire around AD 129–216.
   2. He wrote hundreds of medical texts, and for centuries they were seen as the ultimate authority on how the human body worked.
   3. He studied anatomy by dissecting animals (because Romans banned human dissection), which meant he sometimes came to the wrong conclusions about human anatomy.
2. Observation and experiments replaced blind trust in tradition.
3. Dissections became more common, improving knowledge of anatomy.
4. Microscopes revealed structures no one had seen before.
5. The Church’s control over medical education weakened.

The Industrial Revolution: Dirty Cities, Better Tools, Faster Ideas

1. Rapid urbanisation created overcrowding, pollution, and epidemics.
2. Governments slowly realised public health needed legal reform.
3. Industrial wealth funded laboratories and scientific research.
4. New technology improved microscopes, thermometers, and X-rays.
5. Railways and telegraphs spread discoveries quickly.

Germ Theory: Pasteur and Koch Explain Disease Properly

1. Before germ theory, people blamed “miasma” (bad air).
2. Louis Pasteur showed microorganisms cause disease and multiply.