(ORDO NEWS) — Many do not trust doctors, but you can’t even imagine what path medicine has gone through to become what we imagine it to be now.
Doctors used to do a lot of mutilation, and the death rate was on the rise. But there were geniuses who made incredible discoveries. Rambler will talk about the great medical breakthroughs that saved millions of lives.
Anesthesia
Before the invention of anesthesia, all operations were either painful or very fast. Alcohol, tinctures and even tobacco enemas acted as painkillers.
But one day, American dentist William Morton decided to use diethyl ether for pain relief. He developed it because people were afraid to go to the dentist and tried to create some kind of pain remedy.
He experimented on animals, treated loved ones, and then provided it to the public.
A physician demonstrated the successful use of inhaled ether as an anesthetic in 1846 during an operation to remove a jaw tumor.
During the procedure, the patient slept peacefully, and this was proof of his discovery.
Antibiotics
Without antibiotics, any infection was life threatening. Infection with tuberculosis, whooping cough or pneumonia 100 years ago meant death.
The idea that some microbes can be fought with the help of others existed as early as the 19th century. However, in fact, the first antibiotic was discovered by the Scottish researcher Alexander Fleming in 1928.
Despite the fact that Fleming was known as a brilliant scientist, he made the main discovery of his life thanks to the disorder in his laboratory.
In a petri dish he forgot with staphylococcus, mold fungi settled, which destroyed pathogenic bacteria.
Chemotherapy
The treatment of oncology diseases has always been dangerous, because atypical cells are constantly mutating. The American pediatric pathologist Sidney Farber was able to stop this.
In his work, he focused on leukemia, a disease that did not give a single chance.
At some point, the doctor came across studies in the 30s that the occurrence of megaloblastic anemia in the body can be affected by a lack of vitamin B12 and folic acid.
And I tried to prescribe injections containing folates to the sick. But the experiment failed: folic acid worsened the condition of patients.
From the negative experience, the doctor concluded that a substance that blocks the reproduction of leukocytes can prevent its development.
He entrusted the creation of the substance to the biochemist Yellapragad Subbarao, so they created the first chemotherapeutic drugs.
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