Medicine in Britain, c1700-c1900: Vaccination, Germ Theory and Public Health - Worksheets, Questions and Revision

12 original exam-style questions - 4 pages of questions with a full mark scheme - free printable PDF.

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This topic is chapter 2 of GCSE History: Medicine in Britain, c1250-present Practice Book 1.

Next in this strand

Medicine in Britain, c1500-c1700: The Medical Renaissance and Ideas About the Cause of Disease
Medicine in Britain, c1500-c1700: Treatment, Prevention and the Great Plague of 1665

1.2 Medicine in Britain, c1700-c1900: Vaccination, Germ Theory and Public Health

EDEXCEL 1HI0 · about 50 minutes

Total Marks

Name: _______________________________ Date: ____ / ____ / ______

Answer ALL questions. Write in full sentences for Questions 15, 16 and 17. You are advised to spend about 65 minutes on this pack.

Name the surgeon who pioneered the use of carbolic acid as an antiseptic spray during operations from 1865.

(Total for Question 1 is 1 mark)

Name the two anaesthetics that were introduced into British surgery during the 1840s to reduce patients' pain.

(Total for Question 2 is 2 marks)

Name the nurse whose reforms improved hospital hygiene during the Crimean War (1854-56), and who founded a training school for nurses in London in 1860.

(Total for Question 3 is 1 mark)

Explain why some people opposed vaccination against smallpox in nineteenth-century Britain.

(Total for Question 4 is 8 marks)

Explain why the government passed the Public Health Act of 1875.

(Total for Question 5 is 8 marks)

'Germ theory was the main turning point in the fight against disease in Britain in the years c1700-1900.' How far do you agree with this statement? Explain your answer.

(Total for Question 6 is 16 marks)

Name the disease that Jenner used to give patients protection against smallpox.

(Total for Question 7 is 1 mark)

Give the year in which an Act of Parliament first made smallpox vaccination compulsory for infants in England.

(Total for Question 8 is 1 mark)

Name the French scientist who published the Germ Theory of disease in 1861.

(Total for Question 9 is 1 mark)

Name the German scientist who identified the specific bacteria responsible for anthrax, tuberculosis and cholera.

(Total for Question 10 is 1 mark)

Name the London doctor who investigated the 1854 cholera outbreak in Soho, centred on the Broad Street water pump.

(Total for Question 11 is 1 mark)

Give the year of Edwin Chadwick's Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population, which linked poor living conditions to high rates of disease and death.

(Total for Question 12 is 1 mark)

Mark scheme · 1.2 Medicine in Britain, c1700-c1900: Vaccination, Germ Theory and Public Health

Question 1

B1 Joseph Lister
Answer: Joseph Lister

Question 2

B1 ether (first used in a British operation in December 1846)
B1 chloroform (introduced by James Simpson in 1847)
Answer: Ether and chloroform.

Question 3

B1 Florence Nightingale
Answer: Florence Nightingale

Question 4

Level 1 (1-2): Identifies one or two general reasons for opposition to vaccination, with little or no supporting detail or explanation.
Level 2 (3-4): Identifies and begins to explain one reason for opposition, supported by accurate detail.
Level 3 (5-6): Explains two reasons for opposition, each supported by accurate and relevant detail.
Level 4 (7-8): Explains two or more reasons for opposition in a well-developed, logically structured way, supported throughout by precise and accurate detail, showing how the reasons connect.
Indicative content:
- There was no understanding of germ theory at this time (Jenner's vaccination pre-dated Pasteur's germ theory by over sixty years), so many people, including some doctors, did not understand why vaccination worked and were suspicious of a treatment using material from a diseased animal.
- Some people had religious objections, believing that injecting material from a diseased cow went against God's design of the human body.
- There was public distrust of compulsory vaccination once it was required by law (the Vaccination Acts of 1853 and 1867 made infant vaccination compulsory), which some people saw as unacceptable interference by the government in family life.
- Poor or careless vaccination practice sometimes carried real risks, such as using material from an already-infected arm rather than a controlled source, which led to some genuine cases of infection and fed public fears, even though vaccination itself was fundamentally sound.
- Anti-vaccination societies and pamphlets spread exaggerated or inaccurate claims about the dangers of vaccination, reinforcing public fear and resistance, especially among the poor who faced fines or imprisonment under compulsory vaccination laws.

Question 5

Level 1 (1-2): Identifies one or two general reasons for the 1875 Act, with little or no supporting detail or explanation.
Level 2 (3-4): Identifies and begins to explain one reason, supported by accurate detail.
Level 3 (5-6): Explains two reasons for the 1875 Act, each supported by accurate and relevant detail.
Level 4 (7-8): Explains two or more reasons in a well-developed, logically structured way, supported throughout by precise and accurate detail, showing how the reasons connect.
Indicative content:
- By the 1870s, germ theory was widely accepted following the work of Pasteur and Koch, giving the government a scientific basis for believing that public health measures such as clean water and sewage disposal could genuinely prevent disease.
- Earlier legislation had shown the limits of a voluntary approach: the Public Health Act of 1848 only allowed, rather than required, local authorities to improve sanitation, and its Central Board of Health was abolished in 1858, leaving conditions in many towns unimproved.
- Edwin Chadwick's 1842 Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population had already shown a clear link between poor living conditions and disease and death rates, building pressure for government action over several decades.
- Recurring cholera epidemics, including outbreaks in 1848-49 and 1854, and John Snow's 1854 investigation of the Broad Street pump, had strengthened the case that contaminated water spread disease, adding urgency to calls for reform.
- By the 1870s, growing acceptance that the state had a duty to protect public health, alongside a wealthier and more organised system of local government, made a compulsory national law more practical and more widely supported than it would have been earlier in the century.

Question 6

Level 1 (1-4): Shows limited relevant knowledge of medical developments in the period, and offers only a simple, unsupported opinion on the statement.
Level 2 (5-8): Shows some relevant knowledge and identifies relevant factors, but the argument is only partly supported and lacks a developed judgement on how far the statement is accurate.
Level 3 (9-12): Shows good relevant knowledge and explains a range of factors, reaching a supported judgement on how far the statement is accurate, with some links made between factors.
Level 4 (13-16): Shows precise, well-selected knowledge and explains a range of factors in a balanced way, reaching a fully supported and sustained judgement on how far the statement is accurate, with clear analytical links between factors and consistently accurate use of specialist historical terminology.
Indicative content:
- Supporting: Pasteur's germ theory (published 1861) provided the first scientifically accurate explanation of the cause of infectious disease, replacing older ideas such as miasma and spontaneous generation, and directly enabled further breakthroughs, such as Koch's identification of specific disease-causing bacteria and Lister's use of carbolic acid as an antiseptic in surgery from 1865.
- Supporting: germ theory gave public health reform a firm scientific foundation, helping to explain why the compulsory Public Health Act of 1875 was more effective than the earlier, voluntary 1848 Act.
- Against: significant progress had already been made before 1861, such as Jenner's smallpox vaccination in 1796 (developed decades before germ theory, through observation rather than an understanding of viruses) and the introduction of anaesthetics (ether and chloroform) in the 1840s, which solved the separate problem of surgical pain.
- Against: government attitudes and public health reform, such as Chadwick's 1842 report and the 1848 Public Health Act, were also crucial, and some of this pressure for reform existed before germ theory was accepted.
- Against: Florence Nightingale improved hospital hygiene and nursing during the Crimean War (1854-56) based on an inaccurate belief in miasma, yet still achieved real reductions in death rates, showing progress was possible even without a correct theory of disease.
- A balanced judgement might argue that germ theory was the single most significant turning point because it explained why earlier practical improvements (cleanliness, isolation, vaccination) worked, and because it directly caused later developments in surgery and public health, even though important progress had already begun before 1861.

Question 7

B1 cowpox
Answer: Cowpox

Question 8

B1 1853 (the Vaccination Act 1853; accept 1867 for the later Act adding penalties for non-compliance)
Answer: 1853

Question 9

B1 Louis Pasteur
Answer: Louis Pasteur

Question 10

B1 Robert Koch
Answer: Robert Koch

Question 11

B1 John Snow
Answer: John Snow

Question 12

B1 1842
Answer: 1842

Medicine in Britain, c1700-c1900: Vaccination, Germ Theory and Public Health - Worksheets, Questions and Revision

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1.2 Medicine in Britain, c1700-c1900: Vaccination, Germ Theory and Public Health

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