Childrens Illustrated Encyclopedia

MEDICINE, HISTORY OF

339

Blood-letting

doctors once

believed that too

much blood in the

body was the cause of

disease. they removed the

excess blood by blood-letting.

doctors either cut open a vein to let the

blood out, or they applied bloodsucking

creatures called leeches to the body. the

leech attached itself to the patient with its

sucker, made a wound, then sucked out blood.

the exact spot for blood-letting depended on

what was wrong with the patient.

history of medicine

c. 8000 bce early healers

practice trepanning.

400s bce Hippocrates, a greek,

begins scientific medicine.

1543 Vesalius publishes first

scientific study of human body.

1615 Santorio, an italian doctor,

designs mouth thermometer.

1683 Anton van leeuwenhoek,

a dutch scientist, discovers

bacteria.

1796 edward Jenner gives first

smallpox vaccination.

1816 Rene laennec, a French

doctor, invents stethoscope.

1842 American surgeon,

Horace long, operates using

general anesthetic.

1895 Wilhelm Roentgen, a

german physicist, discovers

x-rays, which enable doctors to

see inside the human body.

1900s Polish-born Marie Curie

and her husband, Pierre Curie

of France, discover the chemical

element radium to treat cancer.

1900s Scottish bacteriologist,

Alexander Fleming, discovers

penicillin.

Carbolic acid

was sprayed

continuously

over operating

area from a

special pump.

SigMund FReud

the Austrian doctor Sigmund Freud

(1856-1939; below) was interested in

finding out how the mind works. He

treated patients with mental disorders by

listening to them talk about their dreams

and thoughts. this treatment

was called psychoanalysis. in

1900, Freud published The

Interpretation of Dreams,

which explained

his method.

AntiSePtiCS

until the late 19th century, surgeons did not wash

their hands or their medical instruments before

operating on a patient. Many patients died from

deadly infections following an operation. Joseph

lister (1827-1912), an english surgeon, guessed

that infection with bacteria might be the cause of

these deaths. in 1865, lister developed an

antiseptic spray called carbolic acid. this

spray could destroy bacteria in the operating

room, so there was a dramatic drop in the

number of deaths following operations.

medical Pioneers

through the centuries

many people have shaped

modern medicine. the

Flemish doctor Vesalius

produced accurate

drawings of the human

body; dutchman Anton

van leeuwenhoek

(1632-1723) first

discovered microbes,

now called bacteria;

and the english doctor

edward Jenner

(1749-1823) discovered

vaccinations—a way

of preventing certain

diseases by injection.

Leeches are parasites that

attach themselves to a host.

They secrete a substance

that stops blood clotting

while they feed on it.

AlexAndeR FleMing

Bacteria cause many of the illnesses that affect

humans, so for years scientists tried to find a

substance that would kill bacteria but would

not harm human tissue. the Scottish

bacteriologist Alexander Fleming

(1881-1955) was the first person to identify

an antibacterial substance. Fleming

carried out his research in a laboratory at

Saint Mary’s Hospital, london, england.

in 1928, Fleming noticed that a mold that

had accidentally developed on a dish of

bacteria culture caused the bacteria to

die. in 1941, the researchers Howard

Florey and ernst Chain purified the

mold, Penicillium, to produce penicillin,

the world’s first antibiotic. Penicillin is

widely used in the treatment of many

diseases, including meningitis and

pneumonia. Fleming shared the 1945 nobel

Prize for Medicine with Florey and Chain.

Find out more

drugs

egypt, ancient

greece, ancient

Medicine

louiS PASteuR

Frenchman louis Pasteur

(1822-1895; above) showed

that bacteria caused disease.

He invented pasteurization—

the heating of milk and beer

to destroy harmful bacteria.

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