IMAT Reading Skills and General Knowledge · History
History of Science, Medicine and Great Prizes
Who discovered what, and when: the doctors, astronomers and physicists a medical student is expected to know, plus the Nobel Prizes and other famous awards.
Why this matters
This is the single biggest theme in the chapter's past questions: the father of medicine, Harvey and the circulation, Galileo, Ptolemy, the Curies, Einstein, Gauss, a scientist-discovery pairing, the Fields Medal and the Nobel Prizes all appear in the Cambridge papers.
Concept 1 of 4: Milestones in the history of medicine
Medicine moved from ideas inherited from authority to knowledge tested by observation. Greek doctors first looked for natural causes of disease; Renaissance anatomists cut open bodies to check the old books; 19th-century scientists proved that germs cause infection. Each name below is linked to one breakthrough.
Definition
- Hippocrates is the "father of Western medicine": disease has natural causes, not divine ones. The Hippocratic Oath is named after him.
- Galen's anatomy, based largely on animal dissection, ruled medicine for about 1,400 years until Vesalius corrected it from human dissection.
- Germ theory (Pasteur, Koch): specific microorganisms cause specific diseases. It led to antisepsis (Lister) and vaccines.
| Person | Place and date | Contribution |
|---|---|---|
| Hippocrates | Kos, Greece, about 460 to 370 BC | Father of Western medicine; the Hippocratic Oath |
| Galen | Greek doctor in Rome, 2nd century AD | Anatomy and physiology from animal dissection; the theory of the four humours |
| Avicenna (Ibn Sina) | Persia, about 1025 | The Canon of Medicine, a standard textbook in Europe for centuries |
| Andreas Vesalius | Padua, 1543 | De humani corporis fabrica: modern human anatomy |
| William Harvey | England, 1628 | De Motu Cordis: the heart pumps blood round a closed circulation |
| Edward Jenner | England, 1796 | First vaccine, against smallpox, using cowpox |
| Ignaz Semmelweis | Vienna, 1847 | Handwashing by doctors cut deaths from childbed fever |
| Louis Pasteur | France, 1860s to 1885 | Germ theory, pasteurisation, rabies vaccine |
| Joseph Lister | Britain, 1867 | Antiseptic surgery using carbolic acid |
| Robert Koch | Germany, 1882 | Identified the tuberculosis bacterium; Koch's postulates |
| Alexander Fleming | London, 1928 | Discovered penicillin, the first antibiotic |
| James Watson and Francis Crick | Cambridge, 1953 | Double-helix structure of DNA, using Rosalind Franklin's X-ray images |
Practice this conceptself-check · 4 quick reps
Philosophers are not the father of medicine
Options often place a famous philosopher next to Hippocrates. Aristotle did important biology, but the title "father of Western medicine" belongs to Hippocrates of Kos, a practising physician.
Concept 2 of 4: Astronomy and the Scientific Revolution, Ptolemy to Newton
For 1,400 years Europe accepted Ptolemy's picture of the Earth at the centre of the universe. Between Copernicus (1543) and Newton (1687) that picture was replaced by a Sun-centred system explained by one law of gravity. This change, and the new habit of testing ideas by experiment, is called the Scientific Revolution.
Definition
- Geocentric model: Earth at the centre (Ptolemy). Heliocentric model: Sun at the centre (Copernicus).
- Galileo used the telescope to support Copernicus and was condemned by the Inquisition in 1633. He also studied the pendulum and falling bodies and built an early thermometer (the thermoscope).
- Newton unified the motion of planets and falling objects in his law of universal gravitation.
| Scientist | Place and date | Contribution |
|---|---|---|
| Claudius Ptolemy | Alexandria, 2nd century AD | The Almagest: an Earth-centred model of the universe |
| Nicolaus Copernicus | Poland, 1543 | De revolutionibus: a Sun-centred model |
| Galileo Galilei | Pisa and Padua, 1609 to 1610 | Improved the telescope; discovered four moons of Jupiter; regular swing of the pendulum |
| Johannes Kepler | Germany and Prague, 1609 to 1619 | Three laws of planetary motion: orbits are ellipses |
| Evangelista Torricelli | Florence, 1643 | Mercury barometer |
| Isaac Newton | England, 1687 | Principia: three laws of motion and universal gravitation; also calculus and optics |
| Carl Friedrich Gauss | Germany, early 1800s | The normal (Gaussian) distribution; number theory |
Practice this conceptself-check · 3 quick reps
Galileo did not invent the battery or discover gravity's law
Galileo improved the telescope, studied the pendulum and falling bodies, and built an early thermoscope. The electric battery is Volta's (1800), and the law of universal gravitation is Newton's (1687).
Concept 3 of 4: Physics, chemistry and biology from Volta to Einstein
In the 1800s and early 1900s science split into modern disciplines and produced most of the laws in your textbooks. Each discovery is tied to one person and usually one year. The pairs below are the ones exam options mix up.
Definition
- Radioactivity was discovered by Becquerel (1896); Marie and Pierre Curie then discovered the elements polonium (named after Poland, Marie's homeland) and radium (1898).
- Einstein published special relativity in 1905 and presented general relativity to the Prussian Academy in Berlin in November 1915.
- Evolution by natural selection was proposed by Darwin (and independently Wallace).
| Scientist | Date | Discovery or invention |
|---|---|---|
| Alessandro Volta | 1800 | Electric battery (the voltaic pile) |
| Michael Faraday | 1831 | Electromagnetic induction, the basis of generators |
| Charles Darwin | 1859 | On the Origin of Species: evolution by natural selection |
| Gregor Mendel | 1866 | Laws of inheritance, from pea plants |
| Dmitri Mendeleev | 1869 | Periodic table of the elements |
| Wilhelm Röntgen | 1895 | X-rays; first Nobel Prize in Physics (1901) |
| Henri Becquerel | 1896 | Radioactivity, from uranium salts |
| Marie and Pierre Curie | 1898 | Polonium and radium; study of radioactivity |
| Albert Einstein | 1905 and 1915 | Special and general relativity; E = mc²; the photoelectric effect |
| Hans Geiger | 1908 to 1928 | Radiation detector (the Geiger counter, with Müller) |
| Niels Bohr | 1913 | Model of the atom with electrons in fixed orbits |
| Ernst Ruska and Max Knoll | 1931 | The electron microscope |
Practice this conceptself-check · 3 quick reps
Uranium was not discovered by the Curies
Uranium was identified in 1789 (by Klaproth); Becquerel found that its salts are radioactive in 1896. The Curies' new elements were polonium and radium. Hydrogen, nitrogen and boron were all known long before.
Concept 4 of 4: Nobel Prizes, other great awards and famous firsts
Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite, left his fortune to reward the people who most benefit humankind. His prizes became the best-known awards in the world, and other fields created their own versions. Learn which prize covers which field, and a few laureates the exam likes.
Definition
- Nobel Prizes (first awarded 1901): Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature and Peace. The prize in Economic Sciences was added in 1969 by Sweden's central bank.
- They are presented in Stockholm, except the Peace Prize, presented in Oslo.
- There is no Nobel Prize in mathematics: the top awards there are the Fields Medal and the Abel Prize.
| Prize or person | Field or achievement | Remember |
|---|---|---|
| Marie Curie | Nobel in Physics (1903) and Chemistry (1911) | First woman to win a Nobel; only person with Nobels in two different sciences |
| Fields Medal | Mathematics | Every four years, to mathematicians under 40 |
| Pulitzer Prize | US journalism, fiction, drama and music | Since 1917, run by Columbia University in New York |
| Turing Award | Computer science | Named after Alan Turing |
| Mahatma Gandhi | Leader of India's non-violent independence movement | Nominated several times but never awarded the Nobel Peace Prize |
| Nobel Peace laureates often asked | Martin Luther King (1964), Willy Brandt (1971), Aung San Suu Kyi (1991), Nelson Mandela (1993), Malala Yousafzai (2014) | Malala was 17: the youngest laureate |
| Rita Levi-Montalcini | Nobel in Physiology or Medicine (1986) | Italian neurologist; discovered nerve growth factor |
Practice this conceptself-check · 3 quick reps
Famous peacemaker is not the same as Nobel laureate
Gandhi never won the Nobel Peace Prize, though he was nominated several times. Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Willy Brandt and Aung San Suu Kyi did. Exam options use Gandhi as the exception.
Summary — formulas & gotchas at a glance
A revision cheat-sheet for the formulas and gotchas above. Click any concept name to jump back to its full explanation.
Reference tables (4)
Milestones in the history of medicine12 rows
| Person | Place and date | Contribution |
|---|---|---|
| Hippocrates | Kos, Greece, about 460 to 370 BC | Father of Western medicine; the Hippocratic Oath |
| Galen | Greek doctor in Rome, 2nd century AD | Anatomy and physiology from animal dissection; the theory of the four humours |
| Avicenna (Ibn Sina) | Persia, about 1025 | The Canon of Medicine, a standard textbook in Europe for centuries |
| Andreas Vesalius | Padua, 1543 | De humani corporis fabrica: modern human anatomy |
| William Harvey | England, 1628 | De Motu Cordis: the heart pumps blood round a closed circulation |
| Edward Jenner | England, 1796 | First vaccine, against smallpox, using cowpox |
| Ignaz Semmelweis | Vienna, 1847 | Handwashing by doctors cut deaths from childbed fever |
| Louis Pasteur | France, 1860s to 1885 | Germ theory, pasteurisation, rabies vaccine |
| Joseph Lister | Britain, 1867 | Antiseptic surgery using carbolic acid |
| Robert Koch | Germany, 1882 | Identified the tuberculosis bacterium; Koch's postulates |
| Alexander Fleming | London, 1928 | Discovered penicillin, the first antibiotic |
| James Watson and Francis Crick | Cambridge, 1953 | Double-helix structure of DNA, using Rosalind Franklin's X-ray images |
Astronomy and the Scientific Revolution, Ptolemy to Newton7 rows
| Scientist | Place and date | Contribution |
|---|---|---|
| Claudius Ptolemy | Alexandria, 2nd century AD | The Almagest: an Earth-centred model of the universe |
| Nicolaus Copernicus | Poland, 1543 | De revolutionibus: a Sun-centred model |
| Galileo Galilei | Pisa and Padua, 1609 to 1610 | Improved the telescope; discovered four moons of Jupiter; regular swing of the pendulum |
| Johannes Kepler | Germany and Prague, 1609 to 1619 | Three laws of planetary motion: orbits are ellipses |
| Evangelista Torricelli | Florence, 1643 | Mercury barometer |
| Isaac Newton | England, 1687 | Principia: three laws of motion and universal gravitation; also calculus and optics |
| Carl Friedrich Gauss | Germany, early 1800s | The normal (Gaussian) distribution; number theory |
Physics, chemistry and biology from Volta to Einstein12 rows
| Scientist | Date | Discovery or invention |
|---|---|---|
| Alessandro Volta | 1800 | Electric battery (the voltaic pile) |
| Michael Faraday | 1831 | Electromagnetic induction, the basis of generators |
| Charles Darwin | 1859 | On the Origin of Species: evolution by natural selection |
| Gregor Mendel | 1866 | Laws of inheritance, from pea plants |
| Dmitri Mendeleev | 1869 | Periodic table of the elements |
| Wilhelm Röntgen | 1895 | X-rays; first Nobel Prize in Physics (1901) |
| Henri Becquerel | 1896 | Radioactivity, from uranium salts |
| Marie and Pierre Curie | 1898 | Polonium and radium; study of radioactivity |
| Albert Einstein | 1905 and 1915 | Special and general relativity; E = mc²; the photoelectric effect |
| Hans Geiger | 1908 to 1928 | Radiation detector (the Geiger counter, with Müller) |
| Niels Bohr | 1913 | Model of the atom with electrons in fixed orbits |
| Ernst Ruska and Max Knoll | 1931 | The electron microscope |
Nobel Prizes, other great awards and famous firsts7 rows
| Prize or person | Field or achievement | Remember |
|---|---|---|
| Marie Curie | Nobel in Physics (1903) and Chemistry (1911) | First woman to win a Nobel; only person with Nobels in two different sciences |
| Fields Medal | Mathematics | Every four years, to mathematicians under 40 |
| Pulitzer Prize | US journalism, fiction, drama and music | Since 1917, run by Columbia University in New York |
| Turing Award | Computer science | Named after Alan Turing |
| Mahatma Gandhi | Leader of India's non-violent independence movement | Nominated several times but never awarded the Nobel Peace Prize |
| Nobel Peace laureates often asked | Martin Luther King (1964), Willy Brandt (1971), Aung San Suu Kyi (1991), Nelson Mandela (1993), Malala Yousafzai (2014) | Malala was 17: the youngest laureate |
| Rita Levi-Montalcini | Nobel in Physiology or Medicine (1986) | Italian neurologist; discovered nerve growth factor |
Watch out for (4)
- Philosophers are not the father of medicine→ Milestones in the history of medicine
- Galileo did not invent the battery or discover gravity's law→ Astronomy and the Scientific Revolution, Ptolemy to Newton
- Uranium was not discovered by the Curies→ Physics, chemistry and biology from Volta to Einstein
- Famous peacemaker is not the same as Nobel laureate→ Nobel Prizes, other great awards and famous firsts
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