Ap Euro Chapter 24 Flashcards

Front 1

Benthamite

Back 1

Benthamites were followers of the radical philosopher Jeremy Bentham. He taught his followers that public problems ought to dealt with on a rational, scientific basis and according to the "greatest good for the greatest number" This convinced Edwin Chadwick that disease and death caused poverty because a sick worker was unemployed and therefore the children were poor and orphaned.

Front 2

miasmatic theory

Back 2

The miasmatic theory was the idea that diseases like cholera or the black death were caused by a "miasma" or pollution, a noxious form of "bad air". In general, this concept was completely obliterated by the germ theory. Doctors and public health officials believed that bad drinking water was a main component of disease and that contagion was spread through filth not caused by it; thus the germ theory was formed.

Front 3

germ theory

Back 3

The breakthrough of the miasmatic theory led to the founding of germs by Louis Pasteur, a French chemist who studied fermentation with brewers. He used a microscope to develop a test of whether you could stop spoilage. He found out that fermentation depended on the growth of small living organisms inside the beer. And thus the germ theory was born.

Front 4

pasteurization

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Pasteur found that the "germs" inside of the beer could be eliminated by heating it to a specific temperature for a predefined length of time and then immediately cool it afterwards in order to keep the food from spoiling. The breathtaking implication was that specific diseases were caused by specific living organisms-germs-and that those organisms could be controlled in people as well as beverages.

Front 5

antiseptic principle

Back 5

Joseph Lister saw the idea of bacteria and wounds and immediately thought that a chemical disinfectant applied to a wound would "destroy the life of the floating particles" German surgeons developed the more sophisticated practice of sterilizing not only the wound but everything, hands, instruments, and clothing, that would enter the operating room because of List's initial ideas.

Front 6

labor aristocracy

Back 6

Highly skilled workers made up about 15 percent of the working class, becoming the labor aristocracy. These workers earned two-thirds as much as the bottom of the servant keeping classes. These workers included members of the traditionally highly skilled handicraft trades that had not been mechanized or put in factories such as cabinetmakers, jewelers, and printers.

Front 7

illegitimacy explosion

Back 7

Between 1750 and 1850, there was an outrageous illegitimacy explosion. By the 1840's, one birth in three was occurring outside of wedlock in many large cities of western, northern, and central Europe. Although poverty and economic uncertainty undoubtedly prevented many lovers from marrying, there were also many among the poor and property-less who saw little wrong with having illegitimate children.

Front 8

separate spheres

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The ideal became a strict division of labor by gender and rigidly constructed separated spheres; the wife as mother and homemaker, the husband as wage earner. This rigid gender division of labor meant that married women faced great injustice when they need, or wanted, to move into the man's world of employment out side of the home. Husbands were unsympathetic or hostile.

Front 9

defense mechanisms

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Sigmund Freud postulated that much of human behavior is motivated by unconscious emotional needs whose nature and origins are kept from conscious awareness by various mental devices he called defense mechanisms. He concluded that much unconscious psychological energy is sexual energy, which is repressed and precariously controlled by rational thinking and moral rules.

Front 10

thermodynamics

Back 10

Building on Isaac Newton's laws of mechanics and on studies of steam engines, thermodynamics investigated the relationship between heat and mechanical energy. By midcentury, physicists had formulated the fundamental laws of thermodynamics, which were then applied to mechanical engineering, chemical processes, and many other fields. It demonstrated that the physical world was governed by firm, unchanging laws.

Front 11

organic chemistry

Back 11

Organic chemistry was the study of the compounds of carbon. Applying theoretical insights gleaned from this new field, researchers in large German chemical companies discovered ways of transforming the dirty, useless coal that accumulated in coke ovens into beautiful, expensive synthetic dyes for the world of fashion.

Front 12

positivist method

Back 12

Comte believed that by applying the scientific method his new discipline of sociology would soon discover the eternal laws of human relations. This colossal achievement would in turn enable social scientists to impose a disciplined harmony and well-being on less enlightened citizens. Dismissing the "fictions" of traditional religions, Comte became the chief priest in the religion of science and rule by experts.

Front 13

evolution

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Thinkers in many fields, such as romantic historians and scientific Marxists shared and applied this basic concept. In geology, Lyell effectively discredited the long-standing view that the earth's surface had been formed by short-lived cataclysms such as biblical floods and earthquakes. Instead, the geological world suggested that the world formed over a long slow process.

Front 14

Social Darwinist

Back 14

Darwin was hailed as the great scientist par excellence, the "Newton of biology" who had revealed once again the powers of objective science. Darwin's findings reinforced the teachings of secularists such as Comte and Marx, who scornfully dismissed religious belief in favor of agnostic or atheist materialism. In the great cities especially, religion was on the defensive.

Front 15

realism

Back 15

The key themes of realism emerged in the 1840's and continued to dominate Western culture and style until the 1890's. Realist writers believed that literature should depict life exactly as it was. Forsaking poetry for prose and the personal, emotional viewpoint of the romantics for strict, scientific objectivity, the realists simply observed and recorded-content to let the facts speak for themselves.