How Nineteenth Century Medicine Changed the Western World

By Donna Wichelman

In the twenty-first century, much of the world deems healthcare as a human right. Most of us in the West have come to expect that when we’re sick, we deserve to have our healthcare needs met, and we will have the best medical care available to us at all times. If COVID taught us anything in the early days before we had the vaccine, it was how vulnerable the majority of us felt without a treatment to cure or eradicate the disease.

But did you know that this right to adequate healthcare for all is a relatively recent concept? Only in 1946 did the constitution of the World Health Organization declare the right to health as a “fundamental inalienable human right.”

The notion that we human beings have the right not to be sick or even to die would have been a foreign concept to prior generations, especially those born before the twentieth century. Illness and death were a part of life, idealized in the nineteenth century by Queen Victoria, who created an entire cultural ethos around death and dying. In the United States, the idea of a “good death” and the “sacredness of the body” prevented scientific studies of human remains.

AI Generated Image of a Victorian-era Mourning Widow: Canva

The history of medicine covers knowledge accumulated over the millennia on how the human body works. Leonardo da Vinci’s studies on the human body and his detailed drawings gave us a trailblazing understanding of our human anatomy. But it wasn’t until the end of the eighteenth century and into the nineteenth century that several events in history came together to make conditions ripe to catapult medicine into the modern era.

The Vitruvian Man by Leonardo Da Vinci
ID 178121824 | Leonardo Da © Mrreporter | Dreamstime.com

The Industrial Revolution that began in Britain in the latter half of the eighteenth century and spread to the rest of the world created a more efficient, mechanized means of production in many industries, including the textiles industry and iron smelting, and water and steam-powered machines became commonplace. With increased production came the need for better transportation methods, such as steam-powered engines for ships and railroads and the shipping industry blossomed. The need for labor created urban sprawl. Incomes went up, and so did the quality of life. People traveled to all parts of the world. 

World travel and living in tight spaces increased the likelihood of contracting infectious diseases. Scientists began to identify illnesses and study how to prevent them. They developed an understanding of how bacteria and viruses worked. Scientists experimented with ways to prevent death and the spread of diseases by improving hygiene and developing antiseptics. They also experimented with drug therapies and developed vaccines for diseases such as rabies and smallpox.

Wars in Europe and America—the American Revolutionary War (1775 – 1783), the Napoleanic Wars (1803 – 1815), the Revolutions of Europe (also known as the Springtime of the Peoples, 1848) the Crimean War (1854), the Franco-Prussian War (1870), American Civil War (1861 – 1865)—ushered in a period of changes and reforms in methods and techniques that led to a whole new field of applied medicine and medical training. For example, anesthetics, such as ether and chloroform, enabled wounded soldiers on the battlefield to undergo surgeries and amputations without being aware of what was happening to them.

American Civil War Battlefield Painting: Compliments of Pixabay

The new theories and techniques weren’t always accepted easily. It sometimes took a gelatinous effort and steady proof for physicians and hospital administrators to change their policies and protocols.

The British surgeon, Dr. Joseph Lister, was one of those pioneers of science and is the man who Dr. Criley reveres in To Mend a Broken Heart. Building upon Louis Pasteur’s theories that microorganisms cause fermentation and infectious diseases, Lister experimented with developing antiseptics and proposed their use in hospitals and other infectious environments. But his ideas took decades to catch on since it had long been thought that miasma—bad air—caused infection. In 1859, the British Association at Leeds mocked Lister’s ideas, and as late as 1873, the medical journal, The Lancet warned against his “progressive” ideas.

Only in the 1880s did Lister’s ideas begin to see acceptance as more and more physicians and scientists implemented antiseptics for use in various environments. It still took nearly another forty years for antiseptics to find full acceptance and become part of a normal protocol.

Listerine Mouthwash, Named After Dr. Joseph Lister
Compliments of Pixabay

Today, we can’t imagine a world without antiseptics. Most of us used them throughout the pandemic in our soaps, hand sanitizers, and air sprays. Medical assistants today rub antiseptic wipes on our arms before inserting a needle to inject various kinds of vaccines. Surgeons require all their patients to wash down with an antiseptic skin cleanser at home before surgery to ward off infection, and medical assistants repeat the process in the prep room with special antiseptic cleansers immediately before taking their patients into the operating room.

Surgery Team Operating in a Surgery Room

ID 45970816 © Dmitry Kotin | Dreamstime.com

Weaving history and faith into stories of intrigue and redemption grew out of Donna's love of travel, history, and literature as a young adult while attending the United World College of the Atlantic--an international college in Wales, U.K. She enjoys developing plots that show how God's love abounds even in the profoundly difficult circumstances of our lives. Her stories reflect the hunger in all of us for love, belonging, and forgiveness.

Donna was a communications professional before writing full-time. Her short stories and articles have appeared in inspirational publications. She has two indie-published romantic suspense novels, Light Out of Darkness and Undaunted Valor, in her Waldensian Series. Her Gilded Age historical romance, A Song of Deliverance, released on December 3, 2024.

Donna and her husband of forty years participate in ministry at their local church in Colorado. They love spending time with their grandchildren and bike, kayak, and travel whenever possible.