Gina Marshall, age 16, of Wilmington, Del., for her question:
WHEN DID MODERN MEDICINE START?
Medicine is the art or science of preventing and treating diseases. It developed with ancient man because it was only natural for him to look for ways to protect himself. Modern science wasn't born until the 16th Century, however, and it started with the development of the science of anatomy.
A Belgian scientist named Andreas Vesalius established a groundwork for medicine when he published his book "Fabric of the Human Body" in 1543, based on findings obtained after dissecting many corpses.
Vesalius' findings stimulated additional research work across Europe.
In the 1600s modern medicine received a boost from an English doctor named William Harvey who was the first to show how the circulatory system and blood vessels worked in the body, and then from a Dutch scientist named Anthony van Leeuwenhoek, who was the first to describe the workings of the small blood vessels called capillaries that connect the arteries and veins.
At the same time, an Italian physiologist named Marcello Malpighi helped by being the first to explain how blood reaches and leaves the lungs.
Leeuwenhoek also perfected the microscope, an instrument that opened a new world to medicine and many other sciences.
By the time the 18th Century came along, medical knowledge was being used to safeguard the health of many people. Also at this time, new and better hospitals were being built and sanitation in cities was being improved.
Perhaps the most important step toward modern medicine came with an English doctor named Edward Jenner. For centuries smallpox epidemics had been sweeping the world and killing thousands of people. Jenner in 1796 successfully produced a vaccination against smallpox.
The Royal Jennerian Society was formed in London in 1803 and during the organization's first 18 months, 12,000 people were given vaccinations. The average yearly death rate from smallpox dropped dramatically from 2,018 to 622. Jenner wasn't exactly sure why his vaccination was so successful and it wasn't until the next century that full knowledge of immunity came with the advanced medical science of immunology.
Experimental surgery and medicine was also greatly advanced at this time by an English physiologist named John Hunter. He is given credit for taking surgery away from the barbers and making it a scientific profession.
As the 19th Century started, modern medicine as we know it today truly came into being. A team of French doctors came up with methods of clinical medicine that are still used today. Clinical medicine is the care and treatment of patients and a way of diagnosing disease.
A very important tool used to diagnose diseases was invented in 1819 by a French physician named Renee Laennec. It was the stethoscope.
A doctor from the United States named Crawford Williamson marked the dawn of the age of modern surgery. He was the first to anesthetize a patient with ether. He did this in 1842 and opened the way for painless operations from that time on.
Chemist Louis Pasteur (1822 1895) was the first to show the medical profession that bacteria cause disease.