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- The list is long and could include such seminal figures as the Belgian anatomist Andreas Vesalius (1514–1564), who founded the modem science of anatomy; the English physician-anatomist William Harvey (1578–1657), who discovered the circulation of the blood; the Dutch naturalist Anton van Leeuwenhoek (1632–1723), who invented the microscope; the French physician Rene Laennec (1781–1826), who introduced auscultation with the stethoscope; the American surgeon Crawford Long (1815–1878), who was the...
www.mayoclinicproceedings.org › article › S0025-6196(11)64264-XThe Millennium and Medicine: The 10 Most Influential Persons
Feb 23, 2016 · Some of the other major medical breakthroughs it touches upon include Sigmund Freud’s revolution of psychology; Joseph Lister’s pioneering of sterilization; Alexander Fleming’s discovery of antibiotics; and the first human organ transplant completed by Joseph Murray.
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Sep 4, 2023 · Dive into the achievements of 10 medical innovators whose revolutionary discoveries have shaped the world of medicine and drugs. From penicillin to antiretroviral therapy, their impact is profound.
- The list includes luminaries like Alexander Fleming, Frederick Banting, and Jonas Salk, among others.
- These medical breakthroughs have saved millions of lives, eradicated diseases, and improved the quality of life globally.
- While these inventions have immense benefits, they also pose ethical questions, especially concerning potential misuse and equitable access.
- The mechanisms vary, from killing bacteria and viruses to regulating hormones and suppressing harmful cells.
- The future holds promise for even more groundbreaking discoveries, from personalized medicine to potential cures for currently incurable diseases.
- Dr. Ben Carson: the only neurosurgeon to successfully separate twins conjoined at the head, and the first to perform intrauterine neurosurgery on a fetus in the womb.
- Dr. Mae Jemison: the physician and engineer who also became the first black female astronaut in NASA history. Jemison got a full ride to Stanford when she was just 16, and after getting a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering, went on to get her medical degree at Cornell University.
- Dr. Charles Drew: the surgeon who pioneered research on blood plasma for transfusions and helped organize the first large-scale blood bank in the US.
- Dr. Marilyn Huges Gaston: the first female and first black physician to direct a public health service bureau. Gaston received her medical degree from University of Cincinnati, and afterwards went to Philadelphia General Hospital to research sickle cell disease (SCD), a potentially fatal inherited blood disorder.
The determination of DNA is widely regarded as the most important discovery of the 20th century in medicine and science. For this work, Crick and Watson were awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine, sharing it with Maurice Wilkins (1916-).
- Marc A. Shampo
- 2000
- Overview
- Early medicine and folklore
- The ancient Middle East and Egypt
history of medicine, the development of the prevention and treatment of disease from prehistoric and ancient times to the 21st century.
Unwritten history is not easy to interpret, and, although much may be learned from a study of the drawings, bony remains, and surgical tools of early humans, it is difficult to reconstruct their mental attitude toward the problems of disease and death. It seems probable that, as soon as they reached the stage of reasoning, they discovered by the process of trial and error which plants might be used as foods, which of them were poisonous, and which of them had some medicinal value. Folk medicine or domestic medicine, consisting largely in the use of vegetable products, or herbs, originated in this fashion and still persists.
But that is not the whole story. Humans did not at first regard death and disease as natural phenomena. Common maladies, such as colds or constipation, were accepted as part of existence and dealt with by means of such herbal remedies as were available. Serious and disabling diseases, however, were placed in a very different category. These were of supernatural origin. They might be the result of a spell cast upon the victim by some enemy, visitation by a malevolent demon, or the work of an offended god who had either projected some object—a dart, a stone, a worm—into the body of the victim or had abstracted something, usually the soul of the patient. The treatment then applied was to lure the errant soul back to its proper habitat within the body or to extract the evil intruder, be it dart or demon, by counterspells, incantations, potions, suction, or other means.
One curious method of providing the disease with means of escape from the body was by making a hole, 2.5 to 5 cm across, in the skull of the victim—the practice of trepanning, or trephining. Trepanned skulls of prehistoric date have been found in Britain, France, and other parts of Europe and in Peru. Many of them show evidence of healing and, presumably, of the patient’s survival. The practice still exists among some tribal people in parts of Algeria, in Melanesia, and perhaps elsewhere, though it is fast becoming extinct.
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Is There a Doctor in the House? Firsts in Medicine Quiz
Magic and religion played a large part in the medicine of prehistoric or early human society. Administration of a vegetable drug or remedy by mouth was accompanied by incantations, dancing, grimaces, and all the tricks of the magician. Therefore, the first doctors, or “medicine men,” were witch doctors or sorcerers. The use of charms and talismans, still prevalent in modern times, is of ancient origin.
The establishment of the calendar and the invention of writing marked the dawn of recorded history. The clues to early knowledge are few, consisting only of clay tablets bearing cuneiform signs and seals that were used by physicians of ancient Mesopotamia. In the Louvre Museum in France, a stone pillar is preserved on which is inscribed the Code of Hammurabi, who was a Babylonian king of the 18th century bce. This code includes laws relating to the practice of medicine, and the penalties for failure were severe. For example, “If the doctor, in opening an abscess, shall kill the patient, his hands shall be cut off”; if, however, the patient was a slave, the doctor was simply obliged to supply another slave.
Greek historian Herodotus stated that every Babylonian was an amateur physician, since it was the custom to lay the sick in the street so that anyone passing by might offer advice. Divination, from the inspection of the liver of a sacrificed animal, was widely practiced to foretell the course of a disease. Little else is known regarding Babylonian medicine, and the name of not a single physician has survived.
When the medicine of ancient Egypt is examined, the picture becomes clearer. The first physician to emerge is Imhotep, chief minister to King Djoser in the 3rd millennium bce, who designed one of the earliest pyramids, the Step Pyramid at Ṣaqqārah, and who was later regarded as the Egyptian god of medicine and identified with the Greek god Asclepius. Surer knowledge comes from the study of Egyptian papyri, especially the Ebers papyrus and Edwin Smith papyrus discovered in the 19th century. The former is a list of remedies, with appropriate spells or incantations, while the latter is a surgical treatise on the treatment of wounds and other injuries.
Contrary to what might be expected, the widespread practice of embalming the dead body did not stimulate study of human anatomy. The preservation of mummies has, however, revealed some of the diseases suffered at that time, including arthritis, tuberculosis of the bone, gout, tooth decay, bladder stones, and gallstones; there is evidence too of the parasitic disease schistosomiasis, which remains a scourge still. There seems to have been no syphilis or rickets.
Mar 30, 2023 · MDLinx present a list of 10 physicians (in chronological order) who—through research, innovation, hard work, and devotion—changed the face of medicine and how it is practiced today.
May 26, 2024 · Here are 10 of the most important medical breakthroughs that have shaped modern healthcare: 1. The Microscope (1590s) The invention of the compound microscope in the late 16th century opened up an entirely new world – the world of microorganisms.
