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460 BCE
Hippocrates
Hippocrates is considered the "Father of Medicine" and also made many early advancements in the field of epidemiology. He tried to explain diseases from a rational prospective instead of a supernatural one. A few of his discoveries are identifying hot and cold diseases, discovering that malaria and yellow fever tend to occur more in swampy areas, and work with the atomic theory. -
John Graunt
Graunt worked on the "bills of mortality" and through this he made strides in the advancement of epidemiology. He worked on vital statistics and and made sure in the records of those who died it was documented their age, gender, and cause of death. He worked on noticing trends of death with all this information and later came to discover acute and chronic diseases. -
Thomas Sydenham
Sydenham published a book called "Observationes Medicae" which went into detail about different diseases he was able to study and identify. One of his most recognized works is classifying different levels of fevers in London. He labeled them as continued fevers, intermittent fevers and small pox. -
Benjamin Jesty and Edward Jenner
Jesty was a dairy farmer and was very familiar with smallpox and watched how his milkmaids never came down with it, however they would come down with cowpox. Jenner continued the work on small pox, he came up the term variolation, when one has a weak strain of a disease, they could not get the full strain of the disease. -
Antoni van Leeuwenhoek
Although a lot of people were involved with the development of the microscope most of the credit goes the Leeuwenhoek. He worked to apply the microscope while studying diseases. He discovered animalcules along with making the discovery of arterial circulation to venous circulation throughout the human. -
James Lind
James Lind is most well known on his work with Scurvy. He was a naval surgeon and was very familiar with seeing sailors come down with scurvy. He noted when the symptoms took place and what they were. He was able to discover that scurvy takes place because of the lack of citrus in their diet. -
Ignaz Semmelweis
Child bed fever was one of the biggest fears of woman in the 1840s. When the woman gives birth she would be at great risk to get an infection that would often kill her and sometimes the baby. Semmelweis discovered that the people helping with child birth came from the morgues and from working on dead bodies. He discovered the importance of hand washing -
William Farr
Farr worked to continue what Graunt started. he worked to make a more modern version of the bills of the mortality, he began the use of "statistics". Along with those advancements he discovered that some diseases have multiple contributors to the cause, this is caused multi factorial etiology. -
John Snow
Snow specialized in studying cholera. He discovered the link between cholera spreading and a water pump in London. Snow also worked to discover descriptive and analytic approaches, and transmission/ incubation periods. He is considered one of the most important and influential epidemiologists. -
Florence Nightingale
Nightingale made advancements in improving sanitary conditions of army war hospitals along with making changes with patient care such as hygiene and treatment. She worked to make nursing a good strong career that is respected. She founded the Nightingale Training School for nurses, along with publishing multiple advancing articles and books. -
Louis Pasteur
Pasteur worked with identifying diseases such as rabies. He decided to work on a deadly bacterial infection known as anthrax, he noticed that there were always anthrax present on dead sheep. He then worked to discover that after the sheep was buried the anthrax bacteria was brought back to the surface by earthworms. -
Robert Koch
He worked to discover different bacteria and microorganisms and prove that they are real and they do cause disease. Koch also discovered the tubercle bacillus, and the importance of water filtration.