Medical and Scientific Advances

Alexander Fleming Penicillin Antibiotics Sulfa Drugs World Health

Organization Sigmund Freud Psychoanalysis Carl Jung

Alfred Adler Max Planck Albert Einstein Ernst Rutherford Lise Meitner Nuclear Fission The Manhattan

Project

Alexander Fleming

Fleming → discovered that specific molds can kill infectious bacteria

Penicillin → specific mold that can be used to kill many types of malicious bacteria

Penicillin would eventually lead a wave of antibiotics → treatments that could be used to slowly rid the body of infectious bacteria

Sulfa Drugs

German chemists were able to discover a red dye (Prontosil) could be used to cure infections.

These drugs would be known as sulfanilamides → these would be also known as sulfa drugs → used to cure many infections and illnesses such as strep throat.

These drugs have proven effective over time but overuse can lead to adaptation by the germs which prompts further work in the field

Other Advances

Other advances were made in the medical field that contributed to modern medicine and has helped cure many disease. The polio vaccine → developed by Jonas Salk,

used to cure polio which attacks the nervous system and slowly deteriorates the body.

The World Health Organization → program used to provide immunizations to areas where people cannot afford them.

Surgical advances → neurosurgery became common around World War I, blood transfusions, pacemakers and transplants

Sigmund Freud

Freud → considered the father of psychoanalysis by many, one of the early leaders of the mental health field.

Freud believed that people's problems were caused by deep rooted problems that had been pushed into the deeper parts of one's memory.

He believed talk therapy or psychoanalysis was the only way to cure these problems.

Many people became followers of psychoanalysis.

Other Psychoanalysts Carl Jung → believed that one's creative

expression was a means by which one could figure out the neuroses affecting a person's life Jung would have his patients draw or write their

dreams as a means of figuring out more about a person and their problems

Alfred Adler → posited the inferiority complex → those that had poor opinions of themselves were more likely to engage in anti-social or destructive behavior. Adler believed that if one had a better self-image,

they would be able to overcome their problems more readily.

Results of Medical Advances

Many major diseases that served to be the scourges of the past were now easily cured or avoided. New diseases would arrive in the future leading to

new innovation being necessary to continue progression in medicine

Mental health advances allowed for new techniques in dealing with criminals and other anti-social individuals Allowed professionals to be able to attempt

rehabilitation and prevention of negative behavior.

Background to Atomic Theory

Initially, physicists believed that atoms were just solid balls that served as building blocks for matter.

Upon Curie's discovery of radium, she posited that these atoms have different weights and that they constantly give off tiny particles of matter called electrons and protons.

Max Planck

Planck → discovered that atoms release their particles in uneven spurts called quanta.

His studies suggest that there is no sharp division between matter and energy.

His field would be known as quantum mechanics.

Albert Einstein

Einstein → scientist chased out of Germany in 1933 who became a leader in atomic theory and physics.

Challenged Newton's theory about the constancy of time and space → could not be fixed since everything is in motion.

Theory of Relativity

Stated that speed and distance are relative to the frame of reference from which they are measured.

There is only one constant, the speed of light. Discovered that matter and energy are in

essence the same thing. Matter is capable of releasing large amounts of

energy (expressed in the equation E = mc(squared)).

Ernst Rutherford

Rutherford → discovered the structure of an atom in 1911.

Described atoms as a mini solar system with particles revolving around the nucleus.

Through his theory, he was able to split the atom in 1917.

Lise Meitner

Meitner → helped discover nuclear fission → process by which a heavy nucleus is combined with another particle and then divides into two lighter nuclei.

Realized that if this process is done in a chain reaction, the amount of energy released would be immense

Nuclear Fission and the Manhattan Project

Niels Bohr, a leading nuclear fission theorist, was forced to leave Denmark for the United States upon the invasion by the Nazis in 1940.

He would help in the creation of the atomic bomb in Los Alamos, New Mexico. He would be joined by Enrico Fermi, Robert

Oppenheimer and Edward Teller in the Manhattan Project → mission to build the atomic bomb.

Created the first nuclear reaction in 1942. Teller would help create the hydrogen bomb

Manhattan Project