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Medicine in Britain, c1250–present

Ideas about the cause of disease and illness, c1700–c1900

  • 3 things to know
  • Paper 1

Overview

Miasma in the early nineteenth century, spontaneous generation, Pasteur's souring liquids and swan-necked flask, Germ Theory in 1861 and its slow reception, Koch's methods and the microbes he identified, and Lister's carbolic acid.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

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Key term

What did most doctors still blame for disease in the first half of the nineteenth century?

Key term

What was the theory of spontaneous generation?

Key term

What problem was Pasteur investigating when he began the work that led to Germ Theory?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    What did most doctors still blame for disease in the first half of the nineteenth century?

    Model answer

    Miasma, the bad air thought to rise from filth, sewage and rotting matter.

  2. 2

    What was the theory of spontaneous generation?

    Model answer

    The belief that microbes were produced by rotting matter, rather than being the cause of the rotting.

  3. 3

    What problem was Pasteur investigating when he began the work that led to Germ Theory?

    Model answer

    Why liquids such as beer, wine and milk turned sour.

  4. 4

    How did Pasteur’s swan-necked flask experiment work?

    Model answer

    Boiled liquid stayed fresh while the curved neck trapped particles from the air, and only went bad once the neck was snapped off.

  5. 5

    What did Pasteur publish in 1861?

    Model answer

    His Germ Theory, arguing that microbes carried in the air cause decay and are not created by it.

  6. 6

    Why did Germ Theory not change British medicine straight away?

    Model answer

    Pasteur had linked microbes to decay rather than to particular human diseases, so many doctors saw no reason to abandon miasma.

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