Medicine Ancient vs Present

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How often do we take these medical procedures seriously! It's astonishing how healthcare has come a long way and yet we're taking both our health and medical facilities for granted. Think about how it was like 50 years ago, 100 years ago 150 or 200 years ago.

Just Think


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Many people go to the doctor so often that frequent procedures are usually given for granted. It may surprise people to know how long it has become common before these procedures. It's nice enough to think about these things to get a better assessment of how quickly the medicine arrived.

To get a good idea of how fast medicine has progressed, we don't need to deal with the old story, though we certainly could. Let's start by looking at the conditions from 1861 to 1865. That was only about 150 years ago, but there's a reason to look at that time frame. United States War happened in that period.

There were about 600,000 deaths during the war. What most people don't fully understand, however, is that only about 200,000 of them died in action. The other two-thirds of the deaths were caused by illness, infection, and what would now be considered medical misconduct.


18th century medical kit

In 1860, there was no formal training for doctors and paramedics on the one hand. For many war doctors, the only training they had was a thin booklet they received. Some of his ideas were also quite absurd. For example, amputation was extremely common, even for what we now consider minor injuries. Because there was very little knowledge about sanitation and no one knew what the germs were, amputation often effectively opened the door to infection. The mortality rate of amputees was extremely high.

Sometimes serious injuries, including stomach injuries, were filled with mud, with the wrong idea that it would allow them to heal more quickly.

Quick forward to around World War. At that point, there had been some progress on medications. It was recognized that germs were hurtful to wellbeing. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, immunizations were constituted against various illnesses. In 1901, Karl Landsteiner found various sorts of blood permitted bondings. The possibility that nutrients are critical to wellbeing came in 1906. Insulin was found in 1921.


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However, sanitation remained virtually non-existent, and many of the injured continued to die from an infection. They knew germs could kill, but they still didn't know sanitation prevented germs. Operations were normally performed even without antiseptics and mostly without anesthesia. Although anesthesia was also known to the ancient Greeks and Romans, there was no widespread use, especially since most available anesthetics were dangerous to use.

When the Korean War was fought, progress was rapid. Sophisticated anesthetics were available, as well as painkillers, antiseptics, and doctors, now trained by health workers, began to understand sanitation facilities. Things like surgical masks often changed op dresses, and disposable rubber gloves have been put into service. We could think of them as simple things, but they saved countless lives. Procedures such as vascular surgery have saved much more.


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The number of advances, including discoveries and inventions, after the Korean War was staggering. There is a tendency to consider many ordinary procedures until we stop thinking about the short time it takes to make progress in this regard. As recently as 150 years ago, a serious injury often meant amputation or death, or both. Doctors can now actually reconnect a cut limb and amputation is the last resort.

Think about it for a second. As recently as 150 years ago, there was no blood test, the importance of blood pressure was not understood, there was no idea what germs are or how they cause infections, there were no antibiotics and normal procedures did not contain pain relief. Medical instruments were not clean and cleanliness was not emphasized during medical procedures. If you had one of these common problems, your chances of survival would have been slim.


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You know all this, don't you think it's amazing how far medical science has progressed in the last and a half centuries? At the very least, a better evaluation of the simplest medical procedures that are being followed today is now expected. Much of what we know today has come to light since 1953!


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