Twentieth Century

Medicine

Medical developments have transformed the quality of life.

The setting up of the National Health Service after the Second World War provided medical care for all, and a more serious and scientific approach has been taken to mental illness.

Medical research is pushing back the frontiers of medical science at a terrific rate.

The use of antibiotics and the transplant of organs are possibly two of the most outstanding aspects of medicine in the Twentieth Century.

It was Alexander Fleming's work, discovering moulds killed microbes, that began the age of antibiotics.

The surgeon in the picture is fitting the patient with a donor kidney. The first kidney was taken out in 1876.

Kidney transplants are now commonplace and even heart transplants are no longer thought incredible.

Can you name the people and equipment in this operating theatre?

Click the picture for an answer.