Health and the People: c1000 to the Present Day
What's covered
Key facts
Anaesthetics initially raised surgical mortality because longer, more ambitious operations exposed patients to infection (the "black period" of surgery before antisepsis).
Apothecaries sold herbal remedies — the precursor of modern pharmacists.
The 1942 Beveridge Report proposed a universal welfare state including free healthcare, identifying the "five giants" of want, disease, ignorance, squalor and idleness.
The title of Vesalius's 1543 anatomy text is De humani corporis fabrica ("The Fabric of the Human Body").
Oswald Hope Robertson established the first practical blood storage and banking system in 1917, allowing blood to be available at the CCS in advance of need.
By 1900 germ theory had explained the causes of many diseases but had produced relatively few effective cures — diagnosis ran ahead of treatment.
Medieval physicians believed the position of stars and planets could affect a patient's health and treatment timing.
Francis Crick and James Watson published the double-helix structure of DNA in 1953, drawing on Rosalind Franklin's X-ray crystallography data.
Galen's anatomical errors arose because he had dissected animals (apes, pigs, dogs) rather than humans — Roman law forbade human dissection in his lifetime.
The RAMC casualty chain ran Regimental Aid Post → Advanced Dressing Station → Casualty Clearing Station → Base Hospital.
Sample questions
A taste of the 140 questions in this topic, answers marked. Sign up to practise the full set with spaced repetition.
What did John Snow prove with the 1854 Broad Street pump?
- •That a germ he had found caused cholera
- •That cholera passed by person-to-person touch
- ✓That cholera spread through contaminated water
- •That cholera was caused by bad air
What was the Black Death and what caused it?
- •A famine from consecutive harvest failures killing a third of the population
- •A form of cholera spread through contaminated water supplies
- •A respiratory disease similar to influenza, mainly killing the young and elderly
- ✓Bubonic plague caused by Yersinia pestis, spread by flea bites from infected rats
Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin in which year?
- •1918
- ✓1928
- •1940
- •1953
In what year did the Great Plague strike London?
- •1348
- •1605
- ✓1665
- •1666
What was the most common type of wound suffered by soldiers on the Western Front?
- •Bayonet wounds in close combat
- •Bullet wounds from rifles
- •Gas burns and skin blisters
- ✓Shrapnel wounds from exploding shells
What does 'public health' mean in the Health and the People course?
- ✓Community measures such as clean water, sewers and housing
- •Fleming's discovery of penicillin
- •Individual treatments and surgery for one patient
- •The anatomy work of Vesalius
Try it for four weeks. Free.
One school. Unlimited classes. No card limit. No teacher limit. If your students aren't practising daily by the end of the trial, you owe us nothing.