The Day The Universe Changed – 07 (1985)

Episode 7.
What the Doctor Ordered: Social Impacts of New Medical Knowledge.
The Day The Universe Changed.

Not only has medical science allowed humans to live longer, healthier lives, it has also led to the identification of people as numbers and statistics. Episode 7 of James Burke’s ground-breaking series “The Day The Universe Changed” explores the evolution of Western Scientific thought starting from the fall of Rome. “What the Doctor Ordered” examines modern medicine, beginning in late 18th-century France. Included: the British cholera epidemic in the 19th century; the use of ether as an anesthetic in the 19th century; the findings of German bacteriologist Robert Koch. James Burke is the host.

Looks at the rise of modern medicine and public health and their relationship to statistics which doctors have learned to apply to diseases, cures, and epidemics. Explains that as medicine became increasingly a science, patients increasingly became statistics.

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