Medicine Through Time- 20th century medicine Flashcards Preview

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Flashcards in Medicine Through Time- 20th century medicine Deck (53)
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1
Q

What developments in the 20th century impacted medicine?

A

There was a great explosion of scientific understanding and technological innovation.
Many societies became hugely rich, though wealth was still unequally shared.
There was considerable urbanisation (explosive growth of cities).
Communications technology made the world seem smaller and more cosmopolitan. This allowed medical ideas to spread rapidly, but also allowed diseases such as SARS to spread.
There was more time for leisure, less time spent on work.
People became less religious - so more inclined to look for medical solutions even to spiritual and psychological problems.
Many societies were democratic, and thought the duty of the state was to care for its citizens - hence demands for a welfare state.
American military and economic power, and American values, were dominant.
Stress due to terrorism, the undermining of traditional values and the rapid pace of life took a great toll on people’s general health.
Wars, epidemics and famines killed more people in the 20th century than they had in the whole of the rest of history.

2
Q

What happened in 1896?

A

1896: Walter Cannon (America) used a barium meal with x-rays to track the passage of food through the digestive system.

3
Q

What was discovered in 1910?

A

1910: Henry Dale (Britain) discovered the chemical histamine, which is produced by the body during an allergic reaction. This allowed him to understand allergic response and surgical shock.

4
Q

What was discovered in 1921?

A

1921: Frederick Banting and Charles Best discovered insulin, which breaks down sugar in the bloodstream. Thus he found the cause of diabetes.

5
Q

When was oestrogen and testosterone discovered?

A

1923: Edgar Allen (America) discovered oestrogen (the hormone that powers femaleness). In 1935 Ernst Laqueur isolated testosterone, the hormone that creates maleness.

6
Q

What was invented in 1931?

A

1931: The invention of the electron microscope allowed doctors to see bacteria and viruses for the first time.

7
Q

What was developed in 1951?

A

1951: The Mexican company Syntex developed norethisterone, which prevents ovulation - leading to production of the first contraceptive pills.

8
Q

What two things were discovered in 1953?

A

1953: Francis Crick and James Watson (Britain) discovered DNA.
1953: Leroy Stevens (America) discovered stem cells.

9
Q

What was discovered in the 1970’s?

A

1970s: Patrick Steptoe (Britain) developed IVF fertility treatment; in 1978 Louise Brown became the first ‘test-tube’ baby.
1970s: Endoscopes - fibre optic cables with a light source - enabled doctors to ‘see’ inside the body.

10
Q

What was invented in 1972?

A

1972: Geoffrey Hounsfield (Britain) invented the CAT scanner, which uses x-ray images from a number of angles to build up a 3D image of the inside of the body

11
Q

What was developed in the 1980’s?

A

MRI scans were developed to monitor the electrical activity of the brain.

12
Q

What happened in 1986?

A

In the Visible Human project undertaken in the US, the bodies of two criminals (a male and a female) were frozen, cut into 1mm slices, stained, photographed and stored as 3-d images on the internet

13
Q

What happened in the 1990’s?

A

1990s: The Human Genome project undertaken in the US mapped all the genes in the human body - 40,000 of them.

14
Q

What happened in 1997?

A

In 1997 Scottish researchers bred Dolly, the first cloned sheep.

15
Q

What happened in 2002?

A

2002: Gunther von Hagens (Germany) performed live dissections on TV.

16
Q

Who was the first specialist neuro-surgeon?

A

1890s: Victor Horsley (British): first specialist neuro-surgeon

17
Q

What was developed in the 1940’s?

A

1940s: Archibald McIndoe (British) learned how to rebuild surgically the faces of airmen (the ‘Guinea Pigs’) burned in the war - this was very early plastic surgery.

18
Q

What happened in 1950?

A

William Bigelow (Canadian) performed the first open-heart surgery to repair a ‘hole’ in a baby’s heart, using hypothermia.

19
Q

What happened in 1952?

A

1952: First kidney transplant (America).

20
Q

What happened in 1962?

A

1962: Surgeons at Massachusetts General Hospital re-attached the arm of a 12-year-old boy.

21
Q

What happened in 1967?

A

1967: Christiaan Barnard (South Africa) performed the first heart transplant - the patient lived for 18 days.

22
Q

What was developed in the 1970’s?

A

he development of plastic lenses allowed cataract surgery. Since 1991 laser eye surgery has obviated the need for glasses.

23
Q

What was developed in 1970?

A

Roy Calne (Britain) developed the use of the immunosuppressant drug cyclosporine, which prevents the body ‘rejecting’ grafts and transplanted organs.

24
Q

What was developed in 1972?

A

1972: John Charnley (Britain) developed hip replacements.

25
Q

What happened in 1986?

A

1986: Davina Thompson (Britain) became the first heart, lungs and liver transplant patient.

26
Q

What increased during the 1990’s?

A

Increasing use of keyhole surgery, using endoscopes and ultrasound scanning, allowed minimally invasive surgery.

27
Q

What happened in 2002?

A

Specialists at Massachusetts General Hospital, watching digital x-rays transmitted by satellite, helped the medical officer at a research station from the South Pole operate on a damaged knee.

28
Q

How did the discovery of vitamins aid medicine?

A

The discovery of vitamins allowed doctors to prescribe vitamin supplements, which cured beriberi, rickets, pernicious anaemia and pellagra.

29
Q

What was developed in 1921 and how did it aid medicine?

A

In 1921 Banting and Best developed insulin. They could not cure diabetes, but they were able to alleviate its results. Today, doctors use hormone treatments to correct thyroid problems, help children grow, improve sexual performance and shrink cancers.

30
Q

What was discovered in 1932 and how did it aid medicine?

A

In 1932, the German scientist Gerhard Domagk discovered that a coal tar product (a sulphonamide called prontosil) killed streptococci bacteria. Other sulphonamides were discovered which could cure pneumonia, meningitis and acne.

31
Q

How did Penicillin aid medicine?

A

During the Second World War, Florey and Chain learned how to mass-produce penicillin - discovered (by chance) in 1928 by the Scottish bacteriologist Alexander Fleming - the first antibiotic. Now, doctors could effectively cure acute infectious disease (although misuse of antibiotics has led to the development of drug-resistant strains of killer diseases such as TB and the MRSA hospital superbug).

32
Q

How did the work of Peter Medawar aid medicine?

A

The work of Peter Medawar (1950s: Britain) on immuno-suppressants led to the development of anti-histamine, which prevents allergies and operative shock.

33
Q

How did medicine begin to aid pregnancy and prevent it?

A

After the 1950s, doctors (through contraception) were able to prevent pregnancy, and after the 1970s (through IVF) to help childless women become pregnant (although side effects of the contraceptive pill are thromboses, migraine and jaundice). In 2005, a 66-year-old Romanian woman gave birth to twins.

34
Q

How did the drug thalidomide both aid and interfere with medicine?

A

In the 1950s, doctors used the drug thalidomide to treat morning sickness during pregnancy. It caused terrible deformities in babies, but today is used in the treatment of AIDS, leprosy and some cancers.

35
Q

How did sex-change operations start to develop?

A

In 1952, the Danish surgeon Christian Hamburger used large doses of hormones and surgical operations to change the sex of George Jorgenson, an American army vet, who returned to the US as Christine.

36
Q

How did the polio vaccine aid medicine?

A

In 1954, Joseph Salk (America) discovered a polio vaccine, which helped eradicate polio from the western world in the 20th century, and which may make it extinct worldwide early in the 21st century.

37
Q

How did the use of technology aid medicine?

A

Doctors started using technology - such as incubators and pacemakers - to help patients.

38
Q

What can doctors still not cure?

A

Doctors are still not able to cure viral infections such as AIDS and the common cold, and cancer is still a killer disease.

39
Q

What are the hopes for genetic engineering?

A

Modern doctors believe that stem cells and genetic engineering will allow doctors to cure or prevent most diseases in the 21st century.

40
Q

What happened in 1918 which aided the development of public health?

A

1918: After the First World War, the British Prime Minister Lloyd George promised the soldiers returning from the battlegrounds of Europe ‘homes fit for heroes’. The government set itself a target of building half-a-million decent homes by 1933.

41
Q

What happened in 1919 which aided the development of public health?

A

1919: A Ministry of Health was set up to look after sanitation, health care and disease, as well as the training of doctors, nurses and dentists, and maternity and children’s welfare.

42
Q

What happened in 1921 which aided the development of public health?

A

1921: Local authorities were required to set up TB sanatoria.

43
Q

What happened in 1934 which aided the development of public health?

A

1934: Although the economic depression of the 1930s caused government to cut back on spending, it passed the Free School Milk Act and encouraged local councils to give poor children free school meals.

44
Q

What happened in 1942 which aided the development of public health?

A

1942: During the Second World War, the need to give people something to fight for led the government to commission up the Beveridge Report. Beveridge recommended a Welfare State, which would provide social security, free health care, free education, council housing and full employment.

45
Q

What happened in 1946 which aided the development of public health?

A

1946: The New Towns Act planned new towns such as Stevenage and Newton Aycliffe to replace the inner-city slums. The Town and Country Planning Act of 1947 set a target of 300,000 new homes a year, and identified ‘green belts’ where housing would not be allowed to continue to swallow up the countryside.

46
Q

When was the national health service set up?

A

5 July 1948: The ‘appointed day’ for the start of the National Health Service

47
Q

What happened in 1956 which aided the development of public health?

A

1956: The Clean Air Act imposed smokeless zones in cities and reduced smog.

48
Q

What did the Black Report show and when?

A

1980: The Black Report stated that huge inequalities in health still existed between the rich and the poor in Britain.

49
Q

What were doctors like at the beginning of the century?

A

local doctors still visited the sick in their homes, usually carrying their sturdy Gladstone bag. Doctors could do little to cure disease, although they had learned some ways of preventing it, and some new techniques of caring for patients.

50
Q

How did the modernization of medicine change the role of the doctor?

A

Sixty per cent of new doctors are now women. Familiar illnesses, previously dangerous, can often be treated by a course of pills. Many other diseases now call for the use of expensive technology so, by the end of the century, most medicine was delivered in hospitals

51
Q

What was confidence in doctors like?

A

Towards the end of the century, confidence in doctors began to wane. Even so, a National Health Service survey in 2002 found that 82 per cent of the population had visited a doctor at least once during the year, and that 90 per cent of those people were satisfied with their treatment.

52
Q

Why did confidence in doctors start to wane?

A

A survey in America in 1974 found that 2.4 million unnecessary operations were performed every year, at a cost of $4billion a year. In Britain in the 2000s, a number of scandals (eg that of the GP Harold Shipman, who murdered his elderly patients) reduced confidence.

53
Q

What did some people still prefer to conventional medicine?

A

One in five Britons prefer alternative healthcare to conventional medicine, and many more are looking after their own health by visiting a gym or attending self-help health groups.

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