Themes of the Scandal in Relation to 'Body, Mind & Medicine: A Dissection'
The germ theory of disease was developed in the early 20th century to explain what causes disease and infection. Before its discovery people believed in the theory of miasma, which states that disease is caused by bad poisonous air. In the early 20th century Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch discovered micro-organisms. They proved that microbes are the source of infection. They may travel in the blood stream and cause a secondary infection somewhere else. Therefore they have to be eliminated from the body, so patients can be cured. This theory shows a similar mechanism to theory of focal sepsis. Cotton also performed surgeries before the discovery of antimicrobial agents. This can be related to the way surgeons used to perform surgeries long before the development of anaesthetics in the early 1840s. It exposed patients to a high risk and death rates were high.