20th Century Medical Advances

Have you ever wonder what medical advancements were made in the Victorian era? These advancements took place in 1837-1901. These advancements changed medicine for the better. Without these breakthroughs medicine would not be where it is today. The medical advancements in England during the Victorian era helped change the status of medicine for the better, in areas like surgeries, hospitals, and diseases.

In 1928, Alexander Fleming discovered that the mold penicillium notatum could be used as an antibiotic. It was not until 1940 that penicillin was derived from the mold to be used to treat disease and sickness. Norman G. Heatley asked a team of scientist to begin working on isolating the ingredient penicillin from the mold itself. In March of 1940, the team withdrew acidified culture

William Harvey published the book called “An Anatomical Account of the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals” which was officially published a fair time after the other two’s books. He proved that the heart acts as a pump by recirculating the blood, and showed that the blood flows around the body and is carried away by the arteries and is carried back into the heart by the veins. This had a limited impact because likewise to Vesalius, it did not make anyone healthier at the time, and it made more of a long term impact on medicine. He had not found a way to practically cure people because he had just made a book to further people’s knowledge on how the body works. Although his book is very useful for us nowadays, at the time people would not know how to approach it, and really wouldn’t make much of an impact on the people’s health.

- Discovery of X-rays led to other majors and improved diagnostic tools such as CAT scan which will lead to the conception of PETT scan and MRI.

1895 – X-rays were discovered accidentally by physicist Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen. Rontgen was working on a experiment and testing whether cathode rays could pass through glass. He noticed that a nearby tube emitted fluorescent glow of crystals. The air in the tube was released, high voltage applied, the same tube emitted a fluorescent glow. When Rontgen covered the tube in a heavy black paper, a green light could be seen. He concluded that a new light ray was being broadcast. Rontgen discovered that the light was very powerful and the same ray could pass through human tissue, but not through bones and metal objects. Medical applications were soon to follow. ("History of radiography," )

Medical breakthrough of the 1950’s created a healthier environment for Americans and the world. In the early 1950 through many scientific studies and efforts Anti-biotics were created . thus, began the control of bacterial infection. Many treatment drugs and surgical procedures were invented to help Americans deal with Arthritis, Diabetes, Heart disease and Cancer. A step toward a healthy tomorrow for many of those afflicted with these, until now, untreatable areas.

by Dr. Alexander Fleming. As test continued, Fleming began to realize that he was on the verge of a great discovery. However, he still did not know the identity of the fungus, and had little knowledge of fungi. His crude extracts could be diluted 1,000 times and still be effective in killing bacteria. After years of working on penicillin and going nowhere, many of his co-workers grew tired of hearing about it. The first real test for penicillin came when a 48-year-old police officer nicked himself shaving. After a time, Alexander's face became infected and he developed a temperature. When he was rushed to the hospital, the doctors believed that he had only hours

The practice of medicine has been shaped through the years by advances in the area of diagnostic procedures. Many of these advances were made possible by scientific breakthroughs made before the 20th century. Modern medicine arguably emerged. Both normal and abnormal functions (physiology and pathology) were increasingly understood within smaller units, first the tissues and then the cells. Microscopy also played a key role in the development of bacteriology. Physicians started to use stethoscope as an aid in diagnosing certain diseases and conditions. New ways of diagnosing disease were developed, and surgery emerged as an important branch of medicine. Above all, a combination of science and technology underpinned medical knowledge and

Modern Medicine wouldn’t be the same without major turning points in history. Not only did it change the way people work in hospitals, but it changed the way people live their lives. Because of these medical discoveries and scientists, people are able to live happy, healthy lives.

Rowland, John. The Penicillin Man: The story of Alexander Fleming. EightImpression. London: Lutherworth Press, 1969.

In 1928 Sir Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin when he left a plate of staphylococcus uncovered on a plate for two weeks. He was a chemist studying enzyme lysozyme, and rarely kept his laboratory clean. Instead of what one would assume would happen if one left a deadly disease unattended, penicillium notatum, similar to the mold on bready, had killed a large portion of the disease the bacteria. Fleming drew the conclusion that penicillin notatum could potentially treat bacterial infections by somehow killing off the bacteria, which led to testing and eventually mass-marketing of the product penicillin. (American Chemical Society, Alexander Fleming Discovery and

The X-Ray was invented in 1895 by Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen. It all started with a vacuum tube called a Crookes tube, with this Roentgen noticed that by pressing a button that activated an electric current through it a shadow was projected onto a screen that showed the photograph of his wife’s hand with a ring

This excitement can be good, bad or in some cases, misleading. The medical field has vastly made its way into a huge money pit of enduring “technological advances”. But, the advances are sometimes not always what they seem to be. Looking ahead, the questions we need to ask ourselves would be: are we getting to excited too quickly when it comes to the amount of anticipation we have about the advances in the medical field? Is there a chance we look for the potential of these “revenge effects” with it all? While trying to discover an answer to these questions, I feel as though people need to take a step back and realize that we will never know right now, what these advances will do for us in the near future whether its change us negatively or positively. Harmful or safe, watchfulness should always be done when it comes to medical technology. Thankfully, the knowledge and skills used with the equipment, has and will continue to save millions and millions of lives now and in the future. The diagnosis of new vaccines and miracle drugs has increased the existence of this population by about twenty years.

There have been many advances in the medical field such as; anesthesia, drugs, machines, etc. This has helped the doctors find alternative solutions to problems, and in return has helped them save more lives. In the article “Medicine” by Britannica, “Many new advances in anesthesia, and these in turn depend upon engineers who have devised machines and chemists produced new drugs. Other operations are made possible by new materials, such as the alloys and plastics that are used to make artificial hip and knee joints.” Advances in the medical field have truly helped modern doctors. Without the medicine, machines, technology they have now there’s no way the doctors could have saved the same amount of lives. As Brian Ward, the author of “The Story of Medicine”, states in his book, “Despite opposition, revolutionary scientists and doctors persevered and made some ground breaking discoveries,” (Ward 22). Even though the doctors during the Renaissance had little technology, they still made discoveries that impacted the medical field. The discoveries made by the Renaissance doctors were life saving. However, with the given technology that is commonly found in modern day society doctors are able to impact the medical and scientific fields and by doing so, save more lives than thought possible during the Renaissance. Within the article “Medicine” written by Britannica, it shows the importance of, “Many other developments in modern surgical treatment rest on a firm basis of experimentation, often first in animals but also in humans; among them are Renal dialysis (artificial kidney), arterial bypass operations, embryo implantation, and exchange transfusions.” Although testing on animals is cruel, it shows that modern doctors were not just experimenting on people. The modern doctors had a thought process to reduce the amount of deaths due to

Obviously these discoveries make great contribution to modern medicine. They not only raise patients’ survival rates but also relieve the pain for patients. We could not image how the hospital would be without these greatest discoveries. So it is obvious that discovery in medical field is a good thing.