History

Of course! I'll try my best! AQA had a similar style question anyways, I now realise you were specifically asking for what knowledge to put in these answers rather than exam structure! I did study history of medicine so I'll try my best.

Okay so firstly this question: "Explain why there have been changes in understanding the causes of illness during the twentieth century".

Okay so obviously, In 1861 Louis Pasteur invented Germ Theory, so this would have been ideal but the question is asking about 20th century rather than 19thc which is a little bit annoying!!!! I'm struggling a little bit for this one to be honest with you, I'm not too sure what I would write about in an exam, perhaps the invention of the X-Ray (definitely watch the video i've linked at the bottom it will help you answer this one!)

Okay so the second question I can help with! "The development of penicillin was a major breakthrough in the treatment of illness during the 20th century.’ How far do you agree? Explain your answer."

For this question, I would write about the Second World War and how penicillin was used to treat soldiers infections, therefore helping people to survive, where in early centuries they would have died. Perhaps talk about Florey and Chain and how they developed penicillin so it could be used to treat people's infections (after testing it on a few animals, they tested penicillin on a human - a postman - who had been pricked by a rose I believe? It worked and was healing his infection but they ran out of penicillin and he actually died! However, this showed them that penicillin did work.)

For AQA I know in this answer you have to refer to ICSPERM factors (such a weird name, but hey, at least I still remember it, these standing for different things: individuals, communications, science, politics, economic, religious and military). So this would be a 16 marker on AQA and you'd need to refer to 2 more ICSPERM factors AND at least 3 more time periods (e.g Medieval and Renaissance). Can you let me know if you'd need to do this on your exam board and I can go into more depth for you?

Also, I would highly recommend you watch the BBC Teach videos on Medicine Through Time - they are brilliant and really help you cement the basics into your head if you watch them a few times! Here's the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVJV...ycm46Ks4DdSaLM