Spontaneous Generation Theory

The Germ Theory of Disease which is, specific diseases are caused by specific microorganisms, changed the medical field completely. It battled the Spontaneous Generation theory that dominated the medical thought as the cause of disease. The theory originated through the work of many different physicians and would eventually change and improve the medical and public health systems. The Germ theory of disease came about around the mid 1800’s. The work of Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch would eventually help the germ theory gain wide acceptance in the medical field. But Pasteur and Koch were influenced by men like Ignaz Semmelveis, Edward Jenner, O.W. Holmes, and John Snow. These physicians helped change the medical field. Edward Jenner was a doctor from England who lived 1749-1843 and he was the first person to come up with a vaccine for small pox. Jenner had worked as a doctor for many dairy farms throughout his career. From working on these farms he noticed the disease cow-pox, which came from milking cows who had the disease. Jenner noticed that the people who had been infected with cow-pox did not contract small-pox even if inoculated with small-pox directly. Jenner believed that if you infected a person with cow-pox they would develop the illness, but after recovery the person would not contract small-pox. Jenner started testing his theory on different subjects, Jenner would either find people that had previously been infected with cow-pox and would inoculate them with small-pox. Out of all the cases that Jenner did this not one of the subjects contracted small-pox. “For example, is it difficult to imagine that the measles, the scarlet fever, and the ulcerous sore throat with spotted skin have all sprung from the same source, assuming some variety in their form according to the nature of their new combinations” . Jenner’s studies would greatly influence the work of Pasteur. Ignaz Semmelveis and O.W. Holmes were both doctors that realized the importance cleanliness in the medical profession in the early 1880’s. Both of these doctors worked in hospitals helping with birth giving. Ignaz Semmelveis was a Hungarian doctor who began to notice the fatality rates of the mothers giving birth in his hospital. Ignaz saw that the doctors that were his students would go from dissecting a dead body straight to delivering a baby and started to make the relation that this is why the mothers were dying of childbed fever after giving birth. After noticing this Semmelveis started to make his doctors wash their hands with chlorinated lime before each procedure. From this he noticed that the mothers dying from childbed fever dropped considerably. John Snow was a physician from England who played a massive role in the Cholera outbreak of the 1800’s. Snow investigated the cholera outbreak of 1849 in Bristol, and again in the cholera outbreak of 1854 Snow investigated a localized outbreak of Cholera in the Broad street area of SoHo. Snow had suggested that the outbreak was being transmitted to people through the water source. Snow investigated his theory thoroughly in the Broad street area. Through his investigations Snow had come to the conclusion that the source for the outbreak was at the Broad street water pump, “On proceeding to the spot, I found that nearly all the deaths had taken place within a short distance of the pump” . Once Snow had enough evidence that …show more content…
Joseph Lister was a Scottish surgeon who used the work of Pasteur to help develop antiseptic surgery. Lister read Pasteur’s work on the fermentation of wine and beer and how microorganisms in the air caused the fermentation. After reading this he concluded that the reason his patients were dying of infection after surgery was because of microorganisms in the air. Lister then started cleaning the open wounds of his patients with carbolic acid which killed the microorganisms. This along with an antiseptic spray that he developed, which he used during surgery to keep the open wound clean, greatly decreased the death rate of his patients. This brought about the practice of antiseptic surgery which would greatly change the medical field of the time, and is still practiced