Science and Medicine

The Vaccination against Smallpox

In the eighteenth century, before Jenner, smallpox was a killer disease, as widespread as cancer or 

heart disease in the twentieth century but with the difference that the majority of its victims were infants 

and young children. In 1980, as a result of Jenner's discovery, the World Health Assembly officially 

declared "the world and its peoples" free from endemic smallpox. The invention of the vaccination 

played an important role in the world's medical history.

The Invention of Different Narcotics

During the nineteenth century researchers were much preoccupied with

 the search for a means of reducing or eliminating the pain of surgery.

Opium had of course been known for a long time, but in 1817 the active

principle was isolated and named `morphine'. Later in the century chemical

anaesthesia came into use: ether, chloroform, and nitrous oxide were found to be effective for this 

purpose. There were disputes about priority in the invention of anaesthesia and one pioneer, an 

American dentist called Horace Wells, committed suicide with chloroform before receiving the 

letter from the Societe Medicale de Paris which acknowledged his discovery and first use of he 

substance. Local anaesthesia was also introduced in the mid-nineteenth century.

Pasteurization to Kill Germs

Emperor Napoleon III asked Louis Pasteur to investigate the diseases afflicting wine which were 

causing considerable economic losses to the wine industry. Pasteur went to a vineyard in Arbois in 

1864 to study this problem. He demonstrated that wine diseases are caused by microorganisms that 

can be killed by heating the wine to 55deg.C for several minutes. Applied to beer and milk, this process, 

called "pasteurization", soon came into use throughout the world.

                             Discovery of X-rays

                                                            X-ray technology is one of the most important inventions of the 19^th  

                                                            century. It plays a major role in our daily life. Whether we need an X-ray

                                                            examination for medical reasons or have our luggage inspected before 

                                                            traveling on an airplane, X-rays allow us an "inside view". X-rays were 

                                                            discovered by a German scientist called Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen in 

                                                           1895.

Discovery of Radium

Radium and its daughter product, radon gas, are very hazardous because they emit high gamma ray energy 

and remain radioactive for a very long time. It was discovered by Marie and Pierre Curie in 1902. The 

couple's discovery had far-reaching effects; opening up the fields of radiotherapy and nuclear medicine, 

improving the treatment of cancer.

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