medicine
Going to the hospital even for a minor operation is stressful and people tend to get nervous about it. So imagine how you would feel if the odds of getting out alive were little more than 50-50! In the early 1800s this would have been the case.
Surgery carried out without anaesthetic, little consideration for cleanliness and no understanding about how infection could be prevented were typical aspects of hospital life.
Some major changes occurred to change this situation and as better living conditions, the availability of soap, the change of clothing (cheap cotton goods that were easier to keep clean) were as, if not more important than the changes to medical care.
An 18th century operation without anaesthetic
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KEY MEDICAL EVENTS |
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Edward Jenner
(1749-1823) |
Develops a vaccination
for smallpox based on his work around cowpox. He has observed that people
who work on farms do not get smallpox and practices inoculating people
with cowpox. It works. |
|
James Simpson
(1811-1870) |
Develops the use of
chloroform for pain relief in childbirth. Becomes a success as Queen
Victoria uses it. |
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Louis Pasteur
(1822-1895) |
Identifies microscopic
germs and the need to sterilise equipment. |
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Joseph Lister
(1827-1912) |
Uses carbolic solution
to prevent infections. Patient deaths drop from 50% after surgery to 3% |
As the 19th century progressed the work of people like Florence Nightingale made nursing a respectable profession for women. Medicine was gaining respect, doctors were not just seen as 'old sawbones'.
Remember, health and the prevention of illness had as much to do with the progress of public health and laws to clear slums. While the people in the box above are noted and should be respected for what they did, people like Chadwick and Fry in exposing the full horrors of living conditions for ordinary people should be kept in mind.
The
losses of men and the injuries many received during
the Crimean war meant changes in medicine were urgent. As with any invention or development, necessity forces progress.