Section A, Question d. Disease and Infection

KEY FACTORS: Role of key individuals, Development of Science and Technology, Impact of Chance, Fast medical change that has been encouraged by War

• KEY INDIVIDUALS -Discovery of the Germ Theory (Louis Pasteur) - following work from the french brewing industry. 
• Understanding of microbes - Cause of disease instead of SUPERNATURAL. 
• Led to development in vaccinations against rabies and developments in the fight against cholera.
• Pasteur findings ENHANCED by Robert Koch.
• Robert Koch: connection between germs and decay, linking specific germs to a particular disease
• Discovered the germ that caused septicemia
• Worked hard to develop vaccine for TB
• PAUL EHRLICH - studied how the human body produced antibodies.
• Able to identify the syphillis microbe 
• Developed the 'Magic Bullet' - one of the very first man made antibodies.

• CHANCE- Edward Jenner - cow pox could be used to create a vaccination against smallpox.
• Country doctor, saw milkmaids who suffered from cowpox did not develop smallpox.
• Vaccine=safer than innoculation
• Couldn't explain why vaccine worked but was still backed by the government. 
• Alexander Fleming- went to clean dirty culture dishes, noticed a penicillin mould spore.
• The germ he was testing had stopped growing as a result.
• Did not act immediately.
• Wrote an article that later inspired Florey and Chain.

• WAR
• Florey and Chain- Recieved funding from USA government to develop a way of mass producing penicillin, so it could be used to treat wounded soldiers during WW2
• Without funding= no mass production of this powerful anitbiotic. 
• Pasteur+Koch - affected in negative way.
• Consequence of Franco Prussian war, became national rivals- made discoveries as fast as they could to increase national pride.
• Koch- rushed development of TB vaccine lead to errors. 
• Stopped them from collaborating.
• They would have made faster progress if they had worked together

• SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
• Discovery of microbes was made possible by increasing the power of the microscope in 19th century.
• Enhanced by Koch when he connected a lens camera to his microscope- could capture images of different germs. 
• Koch used newly developed chemical dyes. 
• Helped him identify different microbes more easily- helped him to prove he had isolated the right germs for the right disease. 
• Pasteur- dveloped swan neck flask to help trap organisms in search for microbes.
• Important in helping him to show thorough public experiments, that microbes did not spontaneously generate.
• Most recently: Understanding of human stem cells allowed sceintists to harvest cells and use them to treat patients with life-threatening diseases or paralysis.