History of infection control

By halima_belgore
  • 1000 BCE

    Egyptians

    Egyptians
    They used bloodletting as a medical therapy in 1000 B.C.One method was to make an incision in a vein or artery, but it was not the only one. Cupping was another common method, in which heated glass cups were placed on the skin, creating a vacuum, breaking small blood vessels and resulting in large areas of bleeding under the skin. Most infamously, leeches were also used as a variant of bloodletting.
  • 800 BCE

    Greeks

    Greeks
    The ancient Greeks believed health was affected by the humors, geographic location, social class, diet, trauma, beliefs, and mindset. Early on the ancient Greeks believed that illnesses were "divine punishments" and that healing was a "gift from the Gods".
  • 27 BCE

    Romans

    Romans
    The Romans encouraged the provision of public health facilities throughout the Empire. Their medicine developed from the needs of the battlefield and learnings from the Greeks.
  • 1500

    Renaissance

    Renaissance
    During the Renaissance, hospitals were called “spittle houses” and provided care for the sick, insane, and destitute. In addition to smallpox and plague, typhoid, and dysentery killed large numbers of patients.

  • 17th Century

    17th Century
    Thomas Sydenham or"English Hippocrates" emphasized the importance of carefully observing patients and their symptoms.

  • 18th Century

    18th Century
    Opium, camphor,liquor anodynes, serpentara (snake-root plant), Peruvian bark, distilled alcohol were used in German hospitals to fight infections.

  • 1847

    1847
    Dr. Ignaz Semmelweiss, a physician in a Vienna hospital, discovered that fatal infections were spread among patients by doctors who failed to wash their hands between examinations

  • Healthcare associated infections

    Healthcare associated infections
    To prevent and control HAIs, in the 1960’s hospital-based clinicians and CDC epidemiologists clearly were beginning to apply a public health model to HAIs and other bloodstream related diseases like pneumonia and surgical site infection. investigation techniques and implementation were taken place and hospital wide interventions to protect patients, staff, and visitors who seemed to be at particular risk.

  • Infection control takes action

    Infection control takes action
    Infection control became an actual medical practices with practitioners formed a professional society, the Association of Practitioners in Infection Control,changing it from a movement into a mandatory practice for all hospitals.

  • Awareness

    Awareness
    Publication of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) report, To Err is Human,. This report revealed that thousands of patients in U.S. hospitals were injured or died each year because of medical errors---many of which might have been preventable. HAIs were recognized as a leading cause of these preventable harms causing infection control to be even more recognized by the government and people of the U.S.A.

  • CLABSI´s

    CLABSI´s
    Congress incorporated HAI prevention into the Value Based Purchasing program of the Affordable Care Act. The first HAI for mandatory reporting was CLABSIs.