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Showing posts with the label 19th century diseases

DISEASES SINCE 1914

  KNOWLEDGE VERSUS SUPERSTITION         In the 14 th  century, when the Black Death threatened the pope’s household in Avignon, his doctor informed him that the conjunction of three planets- Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars –in the sign of Aquarius was the principal cause of the plague.       Some four centuries later, George Washington went to bed with a sore throat. Three eminent doctors treated the infection by draining some two liters of blood from his veins. Within a few hours, the patient was dead. Bloodletting was standard medical practice for 2,500 years –from the time of Hippocrates until the mid-19 th  century.      Although superstition and tradition delayed medical progress, dedicated doctors work hard to discover the causes of infectious diseases and remedies for them. Below are a few of the significant breakthroughs they made.    SMALLPOX: In 1798, Edward Jenner successfully developed a vaccine for smallpox. During the 20 th  century, vaccines have proved effective in preventing

THE MOST FEARED DISEASE OF THE 19TH CENTURY

                  The year was 1854, and London was in the grip of yet another outbreak of cholera –an intestinal ailment characterized by severe diarrhea and dehydration. The disease struck with alarming speed. Many who awoke in good health were dead by nightfall. There was no known cure. It was the most feared disease of the century, and the cause remained a mystery. Some thought cholera was contracted by inhaling offensive odors from decaying organic matter. Their suspicions were understandable. The River Thames, which coursed through London, emitted a horrible stench. Did the foul-smelling air carry the disease? Five years earlier, a physician named John Snow had suggested that cholera was caused, not by contaminated air, but by contaminated water. Another physician, William Budd, believed that a funguslike living organism carried the disease. During the 1854 epidemic, Snow tested his theory by studying the lives of those who had contracted cholera in the Lond