Disease and Infection - Key People

Name: Aristotle

Time Period: Ancient Greece

Lifetime: 384 - 322 BC

What did he do?: He wrote down and published the 'Theory of 4 Humours'  theory that was created by Galen.

Legacy: His (and Hippocrates') ideas were believed until the Renaissance (with Galen's added ideas of the 'Theory of Opposites'

Name: Hippocrates

Time Period: Ancient Greece

Lifetime: 460 - 370 BC

What did he do?: Hippocrates came up with the 'Theory of 4 Humours' (which was written down by Aristotle)                                                                                 He also created the 'Hippocratic Oath' which means that Doctors had to obey behaviour rules within their professional work

Legacy: The 'Theory of 4 Humours' was later developed upon by Galen (the 'Theory of Opposites') and this lasted until the Renaissance when, eventually, the ideas were challenged

Name: Galen

Time Period: Ancient Rome

Lifetime: 130 - 210 AD

What did he do?: Galen created the 'Theory of Opposites' which stated that, to treat the 4 Humours, you must use the opposite humour to treat it - e.g. if you are too hot, you treat it with cold                                                                                                                           Galen also believed in Observation - observing and recording patient's symptoms over time to determine what was wrong and to be used in the future

Legacy: Galen's legacy lasted for many, many years with his books destroyed (Dark Ages) and brough back (Middle Ages) before being, finally, contradicted and disproved in the Renaissance

Name: Avicenna (Ibn Sina)

Time Period: Islamic Empire

Lifetime: 980 - 1037 

What did he do?: Avicenna challenged the ideas of Galen within the Islamic period and published medical books, the most famous of these being the 'Canon of Medicine'

Legacy: His ideas eventually spread to Europe (including the 'Canon of Medicine' during the Crusades war and his ideas began to spread through Europe after this

Name: Rhazes

Time Period: Islamic Empire

Lifetime: 865 - 925

What did he do?: Rhazes took the books of Galen and Hippocrates and translated them into Arabic and then used and conserved the ideas to use within the Islamic Empire

Legacy: His copies of Galen and Hippocrates' ideas were taken back to Europe in the Middle Ages after the Crusade wars and were used and followed until the Renaissance

Name: Paracelsus

Time Period: 

Lifetime: 1493 - 1541

What did he do?: Paracelsus gave lectures, in German rather than Latin, and his lectures defied the lessons of Galen and the 'Theory of 4 Humours' and called Galen a liar

Legacy: He began a chain reaction of people finally questioning Galen so other (correct) theories could overtake it

Name: Edward Jenner

Time Period: Industrial Revolution

Lifetime: 1749 - 1823

What did he do?: Jenner discovered Vaccines after he realised that milk maids, who had cowpox, would not contract small pox. To test this, he injected a boy, called James Phipps, with cowpox and then, after he recovered from it, weak smallpox. Phipps did not contract smallpox and, thus, vaccines were discovered

Legacy: The idea of vaccines would last for years after (after being developed upon by many others) and vaccines are still used in the Modern World

Name: Louis Pasteur

Time Period: Industrial Revolution

Lifetime: 1822 - 1895

What did he do?: Louis Pasteur discoved that germs cause disease and published his findings in his Germ Theory. He had tested air using swan-necked flasks and discovered that a swan-necked flask stopped germs as germs were in the air.

Legacy: His Germ Theory overtook the idea of Spontaneous Generation and has lasted since its discovery right into the Modern World and is considered to be the correct theory.

Name: Robert Koch

Time Period: Industrial Revolution

Lifetime: 1843 - 1910

What did he do?: Koch was able to, using a microscope, identify and stain different types of bateria and link them to the disease that each one caused

Legacy: His ideas and identification of those bacteria lasted way into the Modern World 

Name: Paul Ehrlich

Time Period: 20th Century

Lifetime: 1854 - 1915

What did he do?: Ehrlich was the first person to search after the 'magic bullet' that would cure disease and, by 1914, had discovered many 'magic bullets; with his team

Legacy: His 'magic bullets' have lasted into the Modern World and are used in the creation of antibiotics

Name: Alexander Fleming

Time Period: 20th Century

Lifetime: 1881 - 1955

What did he do?: Alexander Fleming accidentally discovered Pencillin when he noticed that some bacteria in a Petri dish has been killed by natural Penicillium mould and this led to the discovery of Penecillin asan antibiotic

Legacy: His discovery was picked up and continued by Florey and Chain and Penecillin is a well used drug in the Modern World

Name: Florey and Chain

Time Period: 20th Century

Lifetime: Florey - 1898 - 1968

              Chain - 1906 - 1979

What did they do?: They came across the findings of Alexander Fleming and set about the mass production of Penecillin as an antibiotic. They struggled at first, using milk bottles with mould in to produce it but, eventually, were able to mass produce it in America and it was used a lot during the war to help people

Legacy: They (along with Fleming) received Noble Prizes for Penecillin and it is still a popular antibiotic in the Modern World

Name: Watson and Crick

Time Period: 20th Century

Lifetime: Watson - 1928 - present

              Crick - 1916 - 2004

What did they do?: In 1953, they published their discovery on the structure of DNA. Using 3D X-Ray technology, they discovered that DNA had a double-helix structure and exactly how it was structured like this

Legacy: Their discovery on the structure of DNA is still very important to this day in the Modern World and is regulary used within work on genes