Just To Recap

With all the diseases and disorders in the world that society is still desperately trying to find treatments for, it’s easy to think that we haven’t come a long way in the medical field. While it is true that we still have a long way to go, make no mistake. We have made tremendous medical advancements to date.

Let’s go back to the Medieval Era. Not really because that would be terrifying, but let’s talk about it. To be honest, it wasn’t as horrible as most people think it was. They tried you know, they worked with what they had. Unfortunately what they had was limited resources, extremely limited knowledge, and on average only about thirty years to live. The combination of these factors led to very robust medical practices. For example, a common treatment for any kind of ailment pertaining to the head (such as epilepsy, migraines, and even mental illnesses) was to literally to bore a hole in it. Shockingly enough, exposing the brain in such a way often led to fatal infections. Moral of the story: Don’t complain of a headache. Other strange practices included leeching and bloodletting, which were done regularly because they were thought to cleanse the body and keep a person healthy. Needless to say, we have the luxury today of simply taking some Advil and going for a jog.

In more recent centuries, more discoveries, treatments, and even preventative measures have been made. Which brings us to our next extremely overlooked, but incredibly important aspect of modern medicine- vaccines. Whether you like them or not, and whether you choose to get them or not is up to you. But just the concept of them is truly amazing. To think that we have harnessed the power and viciousness of a disease, and turned it into a way of immunizing ourselves to that disease is absolutely profound. What’s even more profound is that we have actually been able to eradicate some diseases using this breakthrough, like polio in the United States. However, there is only one disease that has been eradicated worldwide. That disease is smallpox, and its vaccine was the first one ever created, by a British man named Edward Jenner in 1796. Since his revolutionary invention, we have created vaccines for a slew of diseases, ranging all the way from the flu to certain forms of cancer. Each year new vaccines are developed, some for specific regions of certain countries, and some for use universally.

In even more recent centuries, we’ve continued to make significant developments in the field of medicine. Speaking of which, happy birthday anesthesia! On this day in 1846, the first successful surgical procedure was performed with anesthesia. Also, shout out to Boston, which is where the procedure took place (Massachusetts General Hospital to be exact). But anyways, think about that. That was only 170 years ago people. Can you imagine undergoing a surgical procedure without anesthesia? I would advise you not to, because it may give you nightmares. However, it really did happen. Everything from simply removing a tooth to removing a limb was done while the patient was awake and aware prior to 1846. Yikes. Furthermore, the system that is still in use today, known as the “non-traumatic pharyngeal airway”, was introduced in 1933. That was only 83 years ago! I know for us young people, that seems like a long time. But there are people that witnessed this breakthrough firsthand that are still alive today!

That is just a short list of the many, and I mean many, medical developments that society today (and especially in the US) takes for granted. Developments that once revolutionized medicine now seem mundane. So I figured it would be worth the time to do a little introduction, and give credit where it’s due, before moving on to the more recent advancements in the field of medicine.