Medicine In The 19th Century

In the later part of the 19th century, and the beginning of the 20th century, medicine was able to claim prestige in America. This was largely due to three factors: the greater role of science, improvements and new developments in technology, and the political alliances that educated medical men were able to form. At this point in time, humoral and miasma theories were being overshadowed by germ theory. Hard, scientific evidence was not present in the great majority of previous medial theories. What made this theory distinct from the all previous theories is that it was met with necessary scrutiny and was able to provide an abundance of evidence to support its claim. This demonstrated the growing role of science in medicine; ideas could no longer be shared and accepted, they had to be proved with experimental evidence that met the standards in the scientific method. Take for example John Snow’s claim that cholera was a water borne

Medical men began to see the vale in laboratories, this lead to an increase numbers of hospitals with diagnostic labs. This, and improvements made to instruments such as the thermometer and microscope, and the introduction of the x-ray, the accuracy of diagnosis dramatically increased (Waller, “The Rise of the Medical Laboratory”). This ability “helped to establish the educated doctor’s credentials as an expert who alone could make sense of the body’s subtle signs” (Waller, “Doctors in Demand”). With these new advances came cures for aliments that had plagued populations for decades. Proper diagnoses and related health initiatives worked together to help lower the already declining mortality rates of communal diseases, such as tuberculosis, (Waller, “The McKeown Thesis and Its Critics”). With all of the knowledge coming from the medical community, and doctors starting to help more than hurt patients, the public began to have a higher regard for the