Posted : August 2013
Author : Kate
If you’ve ever visited a museum of naval history, you will
inevitably have come across a display that shows how they used to do surgical
procedures on board ships in the 1800s. Amputations were done on a table, with
the injured man biting on a piece of wood to stop from screaming. You probably
shuddered then and are probably shuddering now. Fortunately, the late 19th century saw the discovery of
anesthetia, which numbs all sensation in the patient. An early anaesthetic was
cocaine, first isolated by Karl Koller. It was an effective numbing agent, but
as we now know it is also addictive and open to abuse. Around the same time,
chloroform was also being used to numb pain (as demonstrated by John Snow
during one of Queen Victoria’s
births), but this too had potentially lethal side-effects. Luckily, today’s
anesthetics are both effective and safe.
9. Birth Control
Another huge difference that occurred in the late 19th
century was the drop in birth rate as people started choosing to have smaller
families. In the UK,
for instance, the birth rate was 35.5 births per 1,000 people in 1870 and was
down to 29 per 1,000 in 1900. This was, in part, due to better education about
sex and reproduction but it was also due to better methods of birth control. In the US,
the “birth control movement” started a few years later, when a group of
radicals, led by Emma Goodman (above), decided to start educating their fellow
women about contraception to try and control the number of unwanted
pregnancies. Their campaign was eventually successful and the Planned
Parenthood Federation of America was formed in 1942. Birth control remains
unpopular with some religious groups, but it has had a profound and undeniable
social effect.
8. MMR
Another controversial one now, with the combined vaccine for
measles, mumps and rubella. It was licensed in 1971, by Maurice Hilleman and
immediately had a significant effect on the number of measles cases reported,
with hundreds of thousands in the US during the 1960s (1966 saw
450,000) reduced to thousands by the 1980s. The controversy occurred much later, in 1998, when Andrew
Wakefield was paid by lawyers to find a way to discredit the MMR. He did this
effectively, by publishing a paper claiming that there was a link between the
MMR vaccine and autism. The research has since been entirely discredited, but
the effects on vaccination rates was devastating, with the officially
eliminated disease reoccurring in the US. Similarly, in the UK the number
of measles cases had dropped to 56 in 1998 and was up to 1348 in 2008. There is
also an epidemic in the UK
in 2013, largely around Wales.
MMR rates are now increasing again, thanks to emergency vaccination programs
and it can be safely said that the MMR is a significant medical breakthrough.
7. X-Ray
A medical procedure that is now so common that we take it
for granted, the X-Ray was discovered by accident. Its inventor was Wilhelm
Conrad Röntgen and on 8 Nov, 1895 he discovered that his cathode ray tube could
produce some unusual images. A week later, he x-rayed his wife’s hand and the
resulting image was close to our modern x-rays – her bones and wedding ring
were clearly visible, but flesh was not. He named it “X-ray” as the X stood for
“unknown”, but they are occasionally known as Röntgen rays in his native Germany. He was
awarded the first Nobel Prize in 1901 and his invention continues to be used in
hospitals everywhere.
6. Insulin
Another breakthrough that is used on a daily basis by
diabetics, insulin is the life-saving hormone that keeps our blood sugars in
check. Diabetics are either missing this hormone entirely (with type 1
diabetes) or produce it but not in a way their bodies can use (type 2). It was
first isolated in 1921, by scientists from the University of Toronto,
who were later awarded the Nobel Prize for their discovery. The following year,
a 14-year-old called Leonard Thompson (above) became the first human to receive
artificial insulin after coming close to a diabetic coma. He rallied after his
second dose (the first was found to be impure) and lived another 13 years. It’s hard to imagine, given that diabetics can now live very
normal lives, but Type 1 Diabetes used to be a terminal disease. Apart from
diet management, there was nothing that could be done to combat the disease.
Nowadays, it still isn’t curable but is manageable thanks to insulin – just as
well, given that obesity rates are rising, and diabetes rates with them.
Insulin could become the most useful drug in the world…
5. IVF
While birth control was a major breakthrough in limiting
unwanted pregnancies, its opposite in many ways, is just as important.
In-vitro fertilization is a way of creating pregnancies, for people who have no
other way of getting pregnant. The history of IVF dates back to the 1950s, but
it wasn’t until 1978 that the first “test-tube baby” was born. The second was
born a year later in Scotland,
although there were unconfirmed reports that there had been a baby born in India between
the two. As with any science that is seen to interfere with natural
conception, IVF has been controversial. It is still outlawed by the Catholic
Church, with its teaching describing babies born through IVF as a “commodity”.
There has also been criticism from other quarters about the multi-million
dollar nature of the IVF industry and the implications of allowing couples to
“design” their baby by selecting embryos based on gender etc. But for childless
couples, IVF is a miracle and it should be recognized as an amazing
breakthrough.
4. Germ Theory
The discovery of germs was such a huge moment in the history
of medicine that it completely changed the way that we think. Prior to that,
patients were advised to carry around things that smelt bad, in order to ward
off the “bad air” or miasma, particles of decaying matter that got into the air
and caused diseases. The actual cause of disease – germs – were discovered by
various scientists, but the breakthrough came in 1854, when John Snow linked an
outbreak of cholera to a specific water pump in Broad Street, London. By isolating the source of the disease, he could then
analyze what was in the water causing it. He tracked it down to an old cesspit,
over which the pump was built and specifically a baby’s nappy that contained
the cholera germs. However, his work was rejected by the government of the
time, as the idea of people breathing in other people’s fecal matter was
considered unseemly. A few years later, Louis Pasteur managed to prove germ
theory in laboratory conditions and it is his name that is generally linked to
the theory. The work of both men lives on, however, in much-improved sanitation
and consequent lower levels of disease.
3. Penicillin
Another groundbreaking drug that has become so widely used
that it seems commonplace. Penicillin was discovered by Alexander Fleming in
1928, almost entirely by accident – a petri dish left overnight showed that a
mold was actively repelling the bacteria around it. Fleming developed the
anti-biotic and it is now used to treat a number of viruses and infections. A
fortuitous discovery that has affected medicine in a profound way ever since.
2. Smallpox Vaccination
This is a real success story for vaccinations. Smallpox was
once a horror of a disease – killing in its millions – but it has been entirely
eradicated thanks to the vaccine. The last recorded case was in 1977, but the
worldwide figures for the 20th century still stand at around 30 million deaths.
It was also notorious for killing thousands in the colonies, as colonists
brought the pox with them and passed it on to the natives. The vaccine was
discovered by Edward Jenner, who had learned that a milkmaid was immune to the
disease because she’d been exposed to cowpox. Jenner isolated the cowpox and used
them as a successful vaccine. One of the greatest achievements in medical
history.
1. DNA
As amazing as all the discoveries so far have been, there is
only one which unpicks the fabric of who we are – and that’s DNA. It dictates
which physical attributes about us, from eye color to genetic disease. It has
played its part in IVF, forensics and so many other fields. As with many on our
list, the discovery was the work of several people, but it was Francis Crick
and James Watson who first produced the double-helix model and subsequently won
the Nobel Prize. An amazing insight into what makes us.
~Blog Admin~
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