Physicians have always been in great demand. True, healers and witch doctors trepanned carelessly. I tranced to facilitate healing skull fractures, migraines, and rondelles. It is the world’s oldest surgical instrument. I am not wearing rondelles, but I am removing skull fragments. Drilling a craniotomy gives access to a stroke victim’s bleeding. Trephine had little impact on medical progress. Here are other instances.
Hypodermic: Bloodstream access has long been desired. In 1492, when Columbus was sailing the seas, Pope Innocent VIII had an apoplectic stroke and slipped into a coma. His doctor then patched the pontiff’s veins. He transfused them all. The effects of infusions using a quill and a pig’s bladder were similar. Needles quickly surpassed bartenders in terms of therapeutic shot delivery. Antibiotics, anesthetics, anticoagulants, and insulin are all injected every year.
Maggots: Anyone can live. The Maya and indigenous Australians are aware of this. We knew they ate diseased and necrotic tissue. For long years, physicians treated infected wounds using maggots. It is not yet over: over 800 institutions in the United States continue to use medical maggots.
Stethoscopes: Napoleon was told by physician Rene Laennec to touch his chest to detect pulmonary and cardiac issues. However, there were certain limitations. Laennec desired to accomplish this objective. Thick trunks obstruct hearing. At best, a male patient’s breast is odd; it’s simply nasty at worst. The stethoscope was designed in 1816 for the overweight and prudish. Doctors began wearing it as a show of authority in the 1850s. According to Jacalyn Duffin of Queen’s University in Ontario, the stethoscope enables doctors to focus on particular illnesses. Together with improved treatments, the stethoscope changed a cough into TB.
(RCTs): A century later, the Medical Research Council questioned doctors and philosophers. This century has seen tremendous advancements in medicine. RCT is often seen as a tool rather than a panacea. A randomized controlled trial (RCT) assigns subjects to experimental and control groups. Sir Simon Wessely is the head of King’s College London’s department of psychiatry. RCTs demonstrate what works.
Kits: As armament developed, battle losses climbed. During the American Civil War, thousands of complex wounds were left. The expanded range of the salvo, from 50-100 yards to around 500 yards. Its minié balls, which are soft lead bullets, can shatter two to three inches of bone and infect wounds. Sixty years before penicillin was discovered, infections claimed the lives of soldiers.
On the other hand, Auxiliaries: Dialysis was not the first kind of artificial organ support. In the 1940s, near-permanent organ replacement became available. The kidney’s function is significantly more complicated. Modern dialysis methods exceed the iron lung. Each year, dialysis saves more than 430,000 lives, a 57 percent increase since 2000.