Health and Medicine in Britain Workshop

AQA – Health and the People

• Medieval Medicine: Approaches including natural, supernatural, ideas of Hippocratic and Galenic methods and treatments; the medieval doctor; training, beliefs about cause of illness.
• The impact of the Renaissance on Britain: Challenge to medical authority in anatomy, physiology and surgery; the work of Vesalius, Pare, William Harvey; opposition to change
• Dealing with Disease: Traditional and new methods of treatments; quackery; methods of treating disease; plague; the growth of hospitals; changes to the training and status of surgeons and physicians; the work of John Hunter
• Prevention of disease: inoculation; Edward Jenner, vaccination and opposition to change.
• A revolution in surgery: Anaesthetics, including Simpson and chloroform; antiseptics, including Lister and carbolic acid; surgical procedures; aseptic surgery
• The development of Germ Theory and its impact on the treatment of disease in Britain: The importance of Pasteur, Robert Koch, and microbe hunting. Pasteur and vaccination; Paul Ehrlich and magic bullets; everyday medical treatments and remedies
• The impact of war and technology on surgery: Plastic surgery; blood transfusions; X-rays; transplant surgery; modern surgical methods, including lasers, radiation therapy and keyhole surgery

Edexcel – Medicine in Britain

• Ideas about the cause of disease and illness - Rational explanations: The Theory of the Four Humours and the miasma theory; the continuing influence in England of Hippocrates and Galen
• Approaches to prevention and treatment - the extent of change in care and treatment: Improvements in medical training and the influence in England of the work of Vesalius
• Case studies - Key individual: William Harvey and the discovery of the circulation of the blood
• Ideas about the cause of disease and illness - Continuity and change in explanations of the causes of disease and illness: The influence in Britain of Pasteur's germ Theory and Koch's work on microbes
• Approaches to prevention and treatment - the extent of change in care and treatment: Improvements in hospital care and the influence of Nightingale. The impact of anaesthetics and antiseptics on surgery
• The significance of the Western Front for experiments in surgery and medicine: new technologies in the treatment of wounds and infection, the Thomas splint, the use of mobile X-ray units, the creation of a blood bank for the Battle of Cambrai
• Approaches to prevention and treatment - the extent of change in care and treatment: The impact of the NHS and science and technology: improved access to care; advances in medicines, including magic bullets and antibiotics; high-tech medical and surgical treatment in hospitals

Eduqas - CHANGES IN HEALTH AND MEDICINE IN BRITAIN, c.500 to the present day

• Causes of illness and disease 

What have been the causes of illness and disease over time? 

Problems in the medieval era: poverty, famine, warfare: lack of hygiene in the medieval and early modern eras with reference to the Black Death of the fourteenth century and the Great Plague of the seventeenth century; the effects of industrialisation and the incidence of cholera and typhoid in the nineteenth century; the spread of bacterial and viral diseases in the twentieth century. 

• Attempts to prevent illness and disease 

How effective were attempts to prevent illness and disease over time? 

Early methods of prevention of disease with reference to the Black Death: alchemy, soothsayers and medieval doctors; the application of science to the prevention of disease in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries: the work of Edward Jenner and vaccination; the influence and spread of inoculation since 1700; the discovery of antibodies and developments in the field of bacteriology.

• Attempts to treat and cure illness and disease 

How have attempts to treat illness and disease changed over time? 

Traditional treatments and remedies common in the medieval era: herbal medicines, barber surgeons, use of leeches; Joseph Lister and the use of antiseptics in the later nineteenth century; James Simpson and the development of anaesthetics ; twentieth century developments: Marie Curie and the development of radiation; the roles of Fleming, Florey and Chain regarding antibiotics; Barnard and transplant surgery; modern advances in cancer treatment and surgery; alternative treatments.

• Advances in medical knowledge 

How much progress has been made in medical knowledge over time? 

Common medical ideas in the medieval era: the influence of alchemy, astrology and the theory of the four humours; the influence of the medical work of Vesalius, Pare and Harvey in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries;  nineteenth century advances in medical knowledge: improved knowledge of the germ theory: Pasteur and Koch; the development of scanning techniques in the twentieth century: X-rays, ultrasound and MRI scans; the discovery of DNA and genetic research in the later twentieth century. 

• Developments in patient care 

How has the care of patients improved over time? 

The role of the church and monasteries from medieval times up to the mid sixteenth century; the roles of voluntary charities in patient care after the mid sixteenth century; science and the development of endowed hospitals in the late eighteenth century; Florence Nightingale and the industrialisation of nursing in the nineteenth century; the impact of the early twentieth century Liberal reforms; the Beveridge Report of 1944 and provision under the NHS after 1948.

OCR - The People’s Health, c.1250 to present

Periods Learners should study the following content:

Medieval Britain c.1250–c.1500

• The characteristic features of medieval Britain: an overview
• Living conditions: housing, food, clean water and waste.
• Responses to the Black Death: beliefs and actions
• Approaches to public health in late-medieval towns and monasteries

Early Modern Britain c.1500–c.1750

• Cultural, social and economic change including the growth of towns: an overview
• Changing living conditions: housing, food, clean water and waste

Industrial Britain, c.1750–c.1900

• Urban living conditions in the early nineteenth century: housing, food, clean water and waste