Joseph Lister Research Paper
Imagine yourself living in the 1800s. Think of all of the inventions that made life easier, such as the telephone to communicate over long distances, or the typewriter to write formal letters to people. These were all important inventions that made life easier, but a biologist by the name of Joseph Lister had made some important discoveries in antiseptics that ended up saving the lives of people. In this paper, I will inform you about Lister’s early life and the degrees he earned from his educational background, his major contribution to the biological community and what people knew before his contribution, the scientists that inspired him and helped him, how knowledge of antiseptics has increased over time,
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Lister “believed that sepsis was caused by a pollen like dust” (Cartwright) and his goal was to try to eliminate contact from the pollen like dust from surgery procedures. He learned from Louis Pasteur that this pollen like dust was micro-organisms and that they caused infections in patients. Lister decided that he was going to “eliminate contact of micro-organisms by exposing them to strong chemicals” (Cartwright). He ended up “finding a chemical called carbolic acid, which had been used to clean sewers and now was being used as a wound dressing to cover the wound and reduce the rate of infection” (Wilson). “In 1865, he tried the carbolic acid by putting it on a serious wound of a young boy, and in six weeks, he was completely healed because there was no infection” (The Famous People). This result led to Lister instructing other surgeons to wash their hands and instruments with carbolic acid to promote cleanliness and prevent infection. Due to this practice, “from 1865 to 1869, surgical mortality fell from 45 to 15 percent” (Cartwright and Biography.com Editors). This statistic clearly indicates that the carbolic acid helps prevent infection and mortality and that Lister was correct in his instructing of others to wash their hands and instruments frequently. Before Lister came up with this discovery, people believed that “infection was spread from bad air in the environment” (Hagy). Because people believed that infection was spread
Dr. Joseph Lister was able to reintroduce cleaniness to the medical field. He used carbolic acid to dress a wound to reduce the rate of infection. This relates to Louis Pasteur because the both of them believed in microbes being the reason for disease so they enforce washing your hands and boiling instruments.
Mr. Gawande starts his literature on washing hands. He introduces two friends a microbiologist and an infectious disease specialist. Both work hard and diligently against the spread of diseases just like Semmelweis who is mentioned in the chapter. Something I learned, that not many realize, is that each year two million people acquire an infection while they are in the hospital. Mainly because the clinicians only wash their hands one-third to one-half as many times as they should. Semmelweis, mentioned earlier, concluded in 1847 that doctors themselves were to blame for childbed fever, which was the leading cause of
In the year of 1928, the famous accidental experiment was made. Mr. Fleming had found a liter Page 3 dish from an earlier experiment thought it was garbage, more closely observed it and found that one of the molds was actually killing the bacteria. He could tell because their nothing growing around it like the rest of the dish. This was essential because by presenting his findings, when it was later recognized as “important” or “useful”, doctors had found a way to help kill bacteria. Which was also a big part of World War Two and the amount of soldiers that had lasted because they didn't die due to open wounds.
(Science Museum) During the Gilded Age, surgeons were just beginning to clean their instruments with a solution called, “carbolic acid.”(How Antiseptic Surgery) This solution helped surgery become less dangerous due to infections. Amputations were the most common surgery in that time.
Medicine has been developed and discovered for thousands of years; however, the 1920’s was the first decade that fashioned a pathway for new developments and discoveries. Medical professionals have taken a huge hit for their fight in finding new inventions that can save patients from death’s hands. In the 1920’s, medicine has also taken a tremendous leap in controlling fatal diseases such as diabetes (Pendergast 110). Medicine in the 1920’s has altered the way medicine is shaped today; furthermore, the development and discovery of the iron lung, penicillin, and insulin were the first pertinent breakthroughs in medical history (“Iron” par. 7; Grimsley par. 15; “Banting” par. 13).
The “Early Life and Career” of John Pemberton stated that he was born on January 8, 1831 in Knoxville, in Crawford County. Pemberton grew up and attended the local schools in Rome. His family lived there almost thirty years. He studied medicine and pharmaceutical practices at the Reform Medical College of Georgia in Macon. In 1850, at age nineteen, he was licensed to practice with Thomsonian medicine and the Botanic Principles. And such pharmaceutical practitioners during that time relied heavily on herbal remedies and on purifying the body of toxins that seemed commonly suspicious to the general public. Pemberton, “otherwise known as Doc,” practiced medicine and surgical prodecures first in Rome along with the surrounding areas and then afterwards in Columbia. In 1855 he established a wholesale retail drug business specializing in material media. Before the Civil War he acquired a graduate degree in pharmacy, but the exact date and place are unknown. Pemberton and the Columbus Company were part of the analytical and manufacturing laboratories which were unique in the south. While Pemberton had one great obsession which was to create medicine and the perfect beverage, he although invented a lot of patent medicines and owned a successful chemist’s store. He wanted to do something more, something bigger. At age fifty, his chief interest in life was to patent a so-called medicated drink which could not only make him a fortune but also secure a place in scientific history
The Black Death ushered in a need for practical medicine. Understanding the cycle of germs, the need of controlling human contact, and the lessons of sanitation and proper handling of disease and materials would prove valuable lessons of the plague. Guy De Chauliac, the
At a time of improvements in society, the 20th century was a central time for scientific discoveries and enhancements. Specifically, medicine experiences a significant advancement during the 1900s. Starting out with the bare minimum, medical researchers invented life-changing technologies, which are continually used in the modern world. Without these developments, high death rates would remain prominent in society today and living conditions would still be in poor shape. Patient care, medical personnel treatment, and medical techniques greatly improved during the 1900s. Along with this, various drugs, vaccines, and procedures came into the medical field and saved many patients’ lives.
What Fleming was particularly interested in was the concept that even though people do obtain bacterial infections at times, majority of the time the human body prevents bacterial infections from affecting the body. During this researching period, Fleming graduated St. Mary’s Medical School once again with a Bachelor of Bacteriology at the same time receiving the gold medal for the top student (Maurois, 1956). In 1914 Fleming concluded his research under Almroth Wright’s guidance and unknowingly continued his journey on to becoming the man with the answer to the biggest human health issue at the time (Maurois, 1956)
In September of 1928, a rushed bacteriologist Dr. Alexander Fleming let his lab at St. Mary’s Hospital, as usual, a mess on his way to a month vacation. Little did he know he had just spawned one of the most crucial inventions of all time. Upon his return to his laboratory he found mold had grown in the petri dishes he had left out. One of whom contained the rare spore Penicillium notatum that had probably wafted up into his lab through the air currents from the down-stairs mycology lab. Dr. Fleming noticed a ring around the mold, and it was 100% bacteria free! Curiosity urged him onward, as he grew a pure culture of the mold and discover that it killed a great deal of disease-causing bacteria. He would go on to name the substance penicillin.
Rowland, John. The Penicillin Man: The story of Alexander Fleming. EightImpression. London: Lutherworth Press, 1969.
Most of the technology that we take for granted today can be directly traced back to WWII. Extensive amounts of research was preformed during this era and for the first time war efforts were directly aimed at disrupting the enemy’s ability to preform research and develop new technologies. In modern day America we take antibiotics for granted and don’t really think twice about the history, or what life was like before them. In the early 1900s people could become very ill and in some cases die from things as simple as a splinter that become infected. When soldiers in WWI were being wounded on the battlefield the
Specifically, there is a whole list on how medicine was originally found and the disease trends starting from polio from 1921 till the incident occurred in which Fleming discovered Penicillin.
As a recognized issue in the mid-1800s hand washing was observed to mean the difference in saving many mothers’ lives to whom just gave birth. In Europe, “childbed fever” left and average of one in four children without a mother due to the spread infection across sectors in medical centres (Western University 19). Observed in Vienna, Austria, Dr. Sammeweis ordered medical practitioners to wash their hands before assisting in labour. As a result, the mortality rate dropped to under one percent (Western University 20). Since then, the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention has named hand washing, “the single most important means of preventing the spread of infection” (Western University 20).
The author introduces and mainly addresses three topics. Remedies that had little less information compared to diseases considering the time period. So Andrew Wear focuses on that latter first. Andrew Wear’s style of writing was a wide reading backed up with primary and secondary sources and also had copious footnotes. As a reminder, Wear’s period of study is 1550-1680, which he describes that one of the greatest threats in early modern world was high infant and child mortality, infection, and high mortality among the poor (the majority of the population). He also shows importance to how plant, animal, and mineral substances can be used for treatment of diseases. Although, the author elucidates the role of therapeutics in the constant battling