Health and the People in Britain, c1000 to the Present Day | AQA GCSE History (8145)

Health and the People in Britain, c1000 to the Present Day

165 questions
13 subtopics
Paper 2
Paper 2

Health and the People in Britain, c1000 to the Present Day is examined in Paper 2, Shaping the nation.

It covers the factors that shape this study, medieval medicine, medical progress, public health in the Middle Ages, the impact of the Renaissance on Britain, dealing with disease, Prevention of disease, the development of Germ Theory and its impact on the treatment of disease in Britain, A revolution in surgery, Improvements in public health, modern treatment of disease, the impact of war and technology on surgery and modern public health.

Sample questions from Health and the People in Britain, c1000 to the Present Day

Answer each one closed book first, then open the answer.

The factors that shape this study

What part has luck played in medical discovery?

Show the answer
Several of the greatest breakthroughs began with an accident rather than a planned experiment, such as a culture left standing over a holiday or a dish left uncovered.
Medieval medicine

Who treated ordinary people who could not afford a physician?

Show the answer
Barber-surgeons, who cut hair, pulled teeth and performed small operations, apothecaries who mixed and sold remedies, and local wise women with herbal knowledge.
Public health in the Middle Ages

When did the Black Death reach Britain, and how many died?

Show the answer
It arrived in 1348 and swept the country through 1349, killing somewhere between a third and a half of the population.
The impact of the Renaissance on Britain

How did Jacobus Sylvius attack Vesalius in 1551?

Show the answer
He published a pamphlet calling his former pupil a mad fool whose ideas were poisoning Europe.
Prevention of disease

What were the drawbacks of inoculation?

Show the answer
It could give the patient the full disease and kill them, they could infect others while ill, and the fee charged put it out of the reach of the poor.
The development of Germ Theory and its impact on the treatment of disease in Britain

Which vaccines did Pasteur produce after that discovery?

Show the answer
One against anthrax in sheep and cattle, demonstrated in public in 1881, and one against rabies, first given to a boy bitten by a dog in 1885.
Improvements in public health

How did John Snow show that cholera was carried in water?

Show the answer
He mapped the deaths in Soho in 1854, found they clustered round one pump in Broad Street, had its handle taken off, and the outbreak stopped.
Modern treatment of disease

Give an example of a resistant infection that troubles hospitals.

Show the answer
MRSA, a staphylococcus resistant to the usual antibiotics, which spreads on wards and is very hard to treat.

The 13 subtopics

One subtopic is one session. Work down the list.

Subtopic	What it covers	Questions
The factors that shape this study	How war, religion and superstition, chance, government, communication, science and technology, and individuals such as Galen and Fleming have helped or held back the progress of British medicine and public health from the Middle Ages to the present day.	20
Medieval medicine	The Four Humours and Galen's Theory of Opposites, supernatural explanations and miasma, how physicians were trained and diagnosed illness, bleeding and purging, the barber-surgeons, apothecaries and wise women who treated the poor, herbal remedies, and why medicine changed so little.	10
Medical progress	How the Church both helped the sick and held back medicine, the purpose of medieval hospitals such as St Bartholomew's, the Islamic medicine of Avicenna, Rhazes and Albucasis, and medieval surgery, including pain relief, cautery and the work of John of Arderne.	10
Public health in the Middle Ages	Why medieval towns were unhealthy, rakers, why monasteries were healthier, the Black Death of 1348 and its believed and real causes, treatments and flagellants, how towns kept plague out, and the Statute of Cambridge.	10
The impact of the Renaissance on Britain	What the Renaissance was, why dissection became more common, Vesalius and the errors of Galen he corrected, Paré's wound dressings and ligatures, Harvey's proof of the circulation, the opposition all three met, and why their discoveries brought patients so little benefit at the time.	17
Dealing with disease	The survival of bleeding and purging, cinchona bark, Culpeper's herbal, quackery, London's plague of 1665 and its searchers and plague doctors, the voluntary hospitals and dispensaries, the rise of the surgeons, and John Hunter.	10
Prevention of disease	The dangers of smallpox, inoculation and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, its drawbacks, Jenner's cowpox experiment of 1796 and vaccination, the opposition it met, Parliament's grants and compulsory vaccination from 1853, and the eradication of smallpox in 1980.	10
The development of Germ Theory and its impact on the treatment of disease in Britain	Spontaneous generation, Pasteur's proof of 1861 and pasteurisation, why treatment did not change at once, Koch's microbes and methods, the chicken cholera accident and Pasteur's vaccines, Ehrlich's magic bullet and Salvarsan 606, and patent medicines.	11
A revolution in surgery	Pain, infection and bleeding, nitrous oxide and ether, Simpson's chloroform and the objections to it, Queen Victoria's approval, the black period of surgery, Lister's carbolic acid and its results, resistance to it, and aseptic surgery.	10
Improvements in public health	Living conditions in the industrial towns, cholera and how it spreads, John Snow and the Broad Street pump, Chadwick's report of 1842 and the resistance to it, the Public Health Acts of 1848 and 1875, the Great Stink and Bazalgette's sewers, and why attitudes changed.	11
Modern treatment of disease	Fleming's discovery of penicillin and why it stalled, Florey and Chain's work and mass production in the Second World War, the growth of the drug industry, the thalidomide tragedy, antibiotic resistance and MRSA, HIV and AIDS, and the appeal of alternative treatments.	10
The impact of war and technology on surgery	Harold Gillies and the tubed pedicle, Archibald McIndoe and the Guinea Pig Club, blood groups, stored blood and the national transfusion service, X-rays at the front, the first kidney and heart transplants and the problem of rejection, and modern keyhole, laser and radiation techniques.	11
Modern public health	Booth's and Rowntree's poverty surveys and the Boer War recruits, the Liberal reforms and their limits, what the two world wars did to health and housing, from homes fit for heroes and the 1919 Housing Act to prefabs and new towns, Beveridge, the NHS and twenty-first-century pressures.	25

Health and the People in Britain, c1000 to the Present Day is 165 of the 1,889 questions in the guide.Get the guide, £7

How the guide is worked

Answering a question from memory stores it far better than reading the answer again. The guide runs that as a fixed procedure on one subtopic at a time, about twenty minutes a session.

Step 1 · Closed book
Cover the answers. Work through one subtopic and write down what you can. Leave blanks where you have nothing.
Step 2 · Open book
Go back to the top. Read each printed answer and write it out in full, including the ones you had right.
Step 3 · Closed book again
Same questions, same order, from memory. The gap between pass one and pass three is the session result.

Read the full method, the return schedule and the research behind it.