How The Evolution Of Medicine Has Negatively Affected Our Culture

William James Mayo once said, “The aim of medicine is to prevent disease and prolong life, the ideal of medicine is to eliminate the need of a physician”.( Mayo/ Google Images) If you truly think about this quote, it's amazing how medicine can one day replace health care professionals. If you think about the beginning of mankind, no one was practicing medicine,so if you were to tell those same people about the medicine we now have they wouldn't be able to imagine it. The evolution of medicine has greatly affected our culture, by allowing us to live better, longer, and healthier lives.The first medical practices were quite fascinating, but what they have evolved into is truly spectacular, that wouldn't have been possible without the evolution
of medical tools, thanks to the many contributions made by doctors, scientists, and nurses.
In the ancient world people made the most of what they had available at their disposal, which at times wasn't very helpful. If someone was to be sick there would be different procedures depending on how sick or injured. If you had a small cold or fever, the basic procedure would be to consume some type of herbal medicine, for the majority of the time it would be a herbal tea. This is mostly common to the over the counter cough or fever syrups available over the counter which can be found at neighborhood pharmacies.
Surgery has yet to be perfected by our world class surgeons meaning it sure wasn't in the past, by it certainly has come a long way. Historian believe the first surgeries occurred during the stone age, during this time holes would be cut into the patient's skull in order to release built up pressure. In modern times craniotomies are performed to do the same action except they have a higher patient survival rate. Evidence has been found from some of the first operations performed by surgeons of the ancient civilizations. For example, the India’s have been nicknamed the pioneers of plastic surgery, because they would snip of the noses as punishment for crimes. Nowadays people get rhinoplasties for health reasons such as trouble breathing, whiles others used them to alter the appearances of their noses.
Another procedure performed by our ancient ancestors was the art of using leeches to remove poison from the bloodstream, doctors have diagnosed this as Sepsis. We no longer use leeches to cure it, instead we have learned different ways to go around the issue without having to extract the blood such as prescribing antibiotics. We have even invented a device called the Central Venous Catheter, to get rid of infection in the blood. The evolution of these procedures would be possible without the advancement of the tools needed to do each procedure or any procedure we do in modern times. Our hands are useful but the things our brains create for our hands to use, are what really make a difference in our lives.
From the beginning of time there has been war, war means people getting injured and being on the verge of losing their lives. Most injuries occurring on the battlefield during , the medieval europeans knew this, and began to station doctors out in the warzones. Back then there were weapons called arrowheads, once you got struck by one the tip breaks off and roams the victim's body. As a result arrowhead removers were invented, they would pinch the tip, successfully pulling it out from the body. This may sound similar to present day battlefields, although ours are more advanced. We now have hospitals near the war zones as well as doctors, nurses and surgeons near the site of action ready to help any military personnel who may have gotten injured. The arrow head remover is very similar to the tool used for removing bullets. The bullet is basically the present day arrowhead and the bullet remover can be see as the present day arrowhead remover. The bullet remover isn't the only modern day version of an ancient or medieval medical device, many of the tools surgeons use now are similar to the ones used by the egyptians. “They had surgical instruments like probes, saws, forceps, scalpels and scissors.” (Lambert) These tools have been altered and made much more sanitary and are now used for more intricate surgeries. For example the saw, is now used for the amputation of limbs, allowing for instalment of artificial body parts, such as a bionic leg. I consider theses tools to be very important in the evolution of medicine but no where near as important as the development of anesthetics.
Anesthetics cause anesthesia, which is the reversible loss of sensation. Without anesthetics any type of surgery would cause unbearable pains, this explains why many surgeries did not work out, previous to the development of anesthetics. Another reason begin, it took a while to perfect the formula of anesthetics to types we are currently using. Doctors began experimenting with different gases such as nitric oxide,which turned out to be a failure, but it did not stop trying to perfect the formula. This led to the first anesthetics being produced for sale in 1858. They were made with ether, chloroform and ironically cocaine, which is now an illegal drug because of how dangerously addictive it is. Heroin, which is now also illegal because of how dangerously addictive it, was once used as an anesthetic in 1898. After many attempts anesthetics were successfully made, so successful that we are able to control what parts of the body they affect, and whether the patient is put to sleep or remain
awake. Anesthetics are a phenomenal example of what happens if you don't give up, thanks to the hard work of many doctors and scientists. Their contribution to the evolution of medicine is among the many that has changed the lives of our generation and future generations. One of the biggest contributions to the medical world are x-rays, which most of the time are taken for granted. They were discovered 1895 by Doctor Wilhelm Roentgen, most people think they are only used to see if you have broken bones but they can be used for much more. For example your dentist use them to find out if you have any cavities and doctors also use them in more serious cases such as to find out where a tumor may be located. X-rays can see things the human eye is unable to identify making them an extremely valuable asset to the medical world. Another contribution which is definitely taken for the granted is the use of ambulances. “In 1792 a Frenchman named Dominique-Jean Larrey created the first ambulance service for wounded men.” (Lambert) Just because they don't directly save lives, they help lives stay alive, without them patients in need of urgent care would be stuck waiting for medical professionals to arrive at the scene. They also provide adequate transportation to and from the hospital This is possible with the help of paramedics, just like the vehicles they work in, they receive no recognition for what they do simply because they don't have fancy medical degrees. The most useful contributors are the mistakes made by past doctors, scientists, and nurses. “Their mistakes have become the stepping stones toward wisdom, even though that was probably not how they felt after continuously failing.(Brown/ Google Images) In some cases mistakes can be the exact solution needed to solve your problem such as the discoverer of penicillin by Alexander Fleming. Penicillin was the first type of antibiotic used to fight germ and deadly diseases, from here we were able to create antibiotics to cure different illnesses. We were also able to make vaccines, such as flu shots. Alexander Fleming is not the only accidental inventor, Wilson Greatbatch accidental invented the implantable pacemaker.
He was an American engineer “attempting to build a device that recorded heart rhythms, but after he mis-assembled the contraption, he noticed that it was giving off a heartbeat-like pulse.” (Chainey) He discovered that his mistake was actually a blessing in disguise because it could be used as a smaller pacemaker. It took him two years of refinement, but he was finally able to perfect it, drafting a patent for it in 1960 and later sending it into production. It has now evolved into a device called the implantable cardioverter-defibrillator, which has and still is helping save the lives of those in
need. Medicine has become a huge part of our culture, and we must continue learning about it. Some may think they know everything there is to know about the anatomy of the human body and when to perform procedures on it, with certain tools. Instead once we found out everything we can we must go further like our ancestors did and not be afraid to make mistakes. Future generations will learn from our mistakes just like we learned from our ancestors, so we better set a good example. There still are medical mysteries that need solving, we have brilliant minds in our generation that will find solutions to these mysterious.This makes our culture one of the most advanced cultures in the world. Who knows, tomorrow could be the day and experimenting doctor figures out the cure for cancer.