Huge developments inside mainstream medicine in the 19th century
Simultaneously, in mainstream medicine there were also huge developments with the discovery of ether (1840s), the formulation of the germ theory of disease by Louis Pasteur in 1864, the discovery of the Bacillus anthracis by Robert Koch in 1876, the development of the vaccines in 1890, the discovery of the X-rays by W. Roentgen providing new diagnostic tools and the availability of the synthetically produced substance of the bark of the willow tree, the famous pain killer “Aspirin” which was around 1900. The scientific community gained recognition and were able to declare disease as “a pathological condition of a part, organ, or system of an organism…”[i], which implied “every disease has a local beginning and one anatomical place in the body”. That was the departure from medicine as an art of healing (Warner)!
[i] The American Heritage Dictionary of English Language 4. Edition: “A pathological condition of a part, organ, or system of an organism resulting from various causes, such as infection, genetic defect, or environmental stress, and characterized by an identifiable group of signs or symptoms”