Epidemiology is the study of determinants and distribution of disease
Clinical epidemiology is the use of epidemiology to improve prevention, detection, and treatment of disease
History of epidemiology
Hippocrates: “Quality of water, how people live, what they drink and eat, whether they exercise, affect their health”
Ignaz Semmelweis discovered that hand disinfection reduced the incidence of puerperal fever
John Snow
The father of epidemiology
Challenged the “miasma theory”, which described that disease occurs due to “miasma”, an airborne poison from unsanitary conditions
Snow’s hypothesis was that a part of London had increased incidence of cholera due to that part of London receiving water from a polluted part of the river Thames
He also traced a cholera outbreak to a single water pump which was contaminated by a young cholera patient
James Lind: divided sailors with scurvy into groups, and gave citrus fruits to some of them
Sir Percival Pott:
Recognized the association between scrotal cancer and chimney sweeping
Katsusaburou Yamagiwa: Confirmed that coal tar could induce cancer by inducing cancer in rabbit ears
Eradication of smallpox in 1978
Identification of AIDS, prediction that it was due to a sexually transmitted virus and development of preventative measures before the HIV virus itself was identified
Infants who lie on their stomach have much higher risk of SIDS
Objectives of epidemiology
Description of diseases occurrences and patterns
Identification of causative agents and risk factors
