What you'll learn
How ideas about health and medicine changed from c1000 to today.
Medieval and Renaissance
- Medieval ideas: the Four Humours, the Church, and limited progress; the Black Death.
- The Renaissance: Vesalius (anatomy), Paré (surgery), Harvey (circulation of the blood).
The medical revolution
- Jenner and vaccination (smallpox).
- Germ theory: Pasteur and Koch; Lister and antiseptics; anaesthetics.
Modern medicine
- Public health reforms (cholera, John Snow, the 1875 Public Health Act).
- Penicillin (Fleming, Florey and Chain) and the founding of the NHS (1948).
Exam tips
- Track factors driving change across time (science, war, government, chance).
- Use named individuals as evidence.
Common mistakes
- Treating progress as steady and continuous.
- Forgetting the role of government and war.