Children & Diseases
Name the main symptom of Rickets.
Bent/disformed bones (in legs, mainly).
Why is plastic now preferred to glass for many pieces of medical equipment?
Glass is hard to clean and sterilise as it would break at high temperatures, whereas plastic will not. Also, glass can break easily during surgery and risk injuring staff and patients.
Anaesthetics provide relief from sensing pain.
In which two different Scottish cities did Lister work?
Edinburgh and Glasgow.
What was the death rate of Smallpox?
30%.
Nurses used to wear clothing that was very restrictive, and Doctors did not wear protective clothing at all - often wearing the same clothes at home or at the hospital. Explain (one reason for each) why this is dangerous?
Nurses - They couldn’t move around easily and had excessive fabric that could easily pick up and spread disease
Doctors - Clothes were not washed or cleaned between patients so disease was easily spread. No special medical equipment was worn (gloves, masks etc).
What two ways can anaesthetics be administered to a patient?
They can be given to patients via injections or breathing in through a mask.
Despite working in different medical areas, both Lister and Semmelweis supported one hygienic practise and believed it would greatly reduce the spread of germs. What was it?
Hand-washing.
What were the main causes of Rickets in children in the 1900s?
Poor/unbalanced diet, living in cramped and unventilated spaces, lack of vitamin D due to working in factories.
When Doctors began to wear aprons, why did they leave them bloodstained for days?
To show off how many patients they had worked on.
Name two methods used before anaesthetics during surgeries.
Herbal remedies
Alcohol
A piece of wood to bite on.
In the case and time of Lister, what did doctors believe caused infections during surgeries?
Bad air that moved in and out of open wounds. Also known as 'Ward fever'.
Explain the different stages of Smallpox infection.
1. Bad fever reaching 40 degrees centigrade.
2. Skin lesions develop and sufferers have aches and experience vomiting.
3. Small red spots develop on the mouth and tongue, and then the whole body. This is the most contagious phase.
4. Lumps develop with fluid inside. Within seven days some sufferers may become blind or even die.
What does Antisepsis mean?
Antisepsis means the destruction of microorganisms to prevent infection
Ether: nausea, vomiting and occasionally death!
Doctors tended to visit the maternity ward directly after performing autopsies (and likely other surgeries). As sterilisation and cleaning were not common at this time, they were bringing germs and infections from the autopsies into the maternity wards on their hands and clothes.
Explain (briefly) how the Smallpox vaccine was discovered.
Edward Jenner noticed milkmaids who had been exposed to Cowpox were immune to Smallpox.
This gave him the idea that the antibodies that the body created to kill of the cowpox virus also actually prevented the dairymaids getting smallpox.
He got a sample of the cowpox virus from a dairymaid and injected it into a 8 year old boy.
After his recovery from cowpox, he then injected the boy with the smallpox virus - he was immune.
Name two differences between Sutures from the 1900s and today.
1900s: Made from animal products, unethical, much less hygienic as they had to be removed later which risked infection.
Now: Made from nylon or silk, more ethical, they dissolve naturally inside the patient and do not need to be removed so no risk of infection.
Explain the differences between local and general anaesthetics.
Local anaesthetic is used for minor injuries and does not send you to sleep but numbs the area where it is injected. It is normally given to the area that needs to be operated on, e.g tooth removal.
General anaesthetic is when you have more serious or invasive procedures where it will be safer to put you to sleep and is given to patients via an injection.
Which scientists work inspired Lister, and what did it lead to him believing in?
He was inspired by Louis Pasteur, and was led to believe that it was tiny micro-organisms called 'germs' that were causing infections.