Advances In Medicine In The 1800's

Why did the discoveries of the Renaissance make little practical difference to medical treatment between c1500-c1700?

Before the 18th century, medicine had not advanced beyond the practices of bloodletting and balancing the four humors of the body. These medical practices were not effective and did more harm than good. It was not until the Scientific Revolution that physicians slowly started to learn more about the human body and how functions. The numerous advancements of medicine in the 18th century and resulting benefits to European Society are reflected in the lack of medical practices before the 1700s, the creation of the smallpox vaccine, and improved techniques.

Medieval medicine was rooted in Ancient Greek practices. In 65 A.D., a Greek writer, Discorides, wrote a book, Material Medica. The book is about medical use of over five-hundred different plants. The book is translated into Hebrew and Arabic. Doctors in the Early Modern Era knew very little, and they used plants as the most important care and/or treatment. Due to unsanitary places and tools, many different diseases spread around Europe. Life was challenging during the Early Modern Era because of many diseases(Alchin). During the 1500s- 1600s, diseases overtook many people because doctors knew little, medicine was unknown, and there were many causes.

Lack of medical knowledge from the 1800’s was shown in this tale. “Indeed he started the habit by making me lie down for an hour after each meal. It is a very bad habit I am convinced. For you see I don't sleep” (Gilman 653). The physician in the story makes his wife sleep so much that it makes her sleep patterns unhealthy. This was a common practice stated by the web site article “The Treatment of ‘Hysteria’ in the Late 1890's” to treat hysteria in the 19th century. Today’s physicians know that too much sleep causes fatigue and anxiety, making a person tired all the time, as stated from the website “WebMD”. John in the story makes his wife Jane sleep so much it is making her worse because she can not sleep when she wants to even while she

Imagine waking up in the middle of the night, you’re sweating, coughing, and starting to throw up. In today’s world, doctors are available for situations like these. Before the 1800’s, doctors were not as common, and their techniques were questionable. It wasn’t until the 1800’s, that doctors and scientists began discovering and creating medicines and vaccines to help cure sickness and disease. During the 1800’s, there were very many medical advancements. Because there were a lot of medical advancements, there were conflictions such as medical/scientific concerns, ethical concerns, legal changes, and how the economy was affected.

Although medicine today is comparatively more advanced, that is a more recent change than one would like to think. For instance, not even 150 years ago, “Hippocrates and Galen would have recognized and largely agreed with most medical practices.” Barry addresses this topic of medical advancement at the beginning of his book by producing a well researched, albeit a little too long, history of western medicine. He provides examples of how medicine evolved from the teachings of Hippocrates, Galen, and Vesalius to a more “modern” form of medicine. This was done in order to explain how prepared the medical community was in the face of this impending virus. Unlike the other epidemics, the people of the early 19-century should have been prepared to face the influenza with all of their exciting and new medical equipment and practices, but there was something in their way of advancement—universities.

The Greeks went even further, introducing the concepts of medical diagnosis, prognosis, and advanced medical ethics. The Hippocratic Oath, still taken by doctors up to today, was written in Greece in the 5th century BCE. The germ theory of disease in the 19th century led to cures for many infectious diseases. Public health measures were developed especially in the 19th century as the rapid growth of cities required systematic sanitary measures. Advanced research centers opened in the early 20th century, mid-20th century was characterized by new biological treatments, such as antibiotics. These advancements, along with developments in chemistry, genetics, and lab technology led to modern medicine. Medicine was heavily professionalized in the 20th century, and new careers opened to women as nurses and as physicians. The 21st century is characterized by highly advanced research involving numerous fields of science.

In the preindustrial era, 1800s, the United States fell behind other countries in health services. There was no medical training until around 1870 (Shi & Singh, 2013). Medical training began with students training under the supervision of physicians. Physicians saw patients by making house calls. Health care was delivered in a free market (Shi & Singh, 2013). No one had insurance so costs were out of pocket. For most Americans, this was a problem and some rural areas relied on folk medicine to heal the sick. The medical institutions during this era were not sanitized properly and nurses were not trained to practice safety and hygiene care. The government provided facilities for elderly, chronically ill patients, and clinics that offered free care.

Tight, prickly, acidic-like air sliding down your throat, burning your lungs with every ounce of air taken in. Walking into the hospital today, with a killer cough, you would undergo a chest CT and an eco; if your condition was paralis. Joel D. Howell specified that, “In the 1900’s, going to the doctor with a severe cough, the proxy would be a cough drop or a hot shower. Medical technology has enhanced since the 1900’s, but we wouldn't be anywhere without the medical advances in the 1920’s”. In the 1920’s, medical technology was heavily affected by the end of the WW1, the Fleming fail, prohibition and cigarettes.

Medicine has always been improving throughout the years, but the 1940s were one of the most critical times of how medicine is still practiced today. There were a lot of medical advancements in the 1940s. New antibiotics were discovered, new medical practices helped in the war effort, tests and organizations set up to help find problems in health or health care.

Most of the diseases in 1900 are treatable or do not exist today. Cancer and heart disease related deaths were much less dominant back then than they are now. This would probably be due to people dying to infectious diseases before cancer or heart diseases could set in. People in 1900’s would die within a week once infected with a disease, but today when people die of illness it takes years. It takes linger now to die of diseases because we have medication and other medical treatments to help people live a long life while infected. An example of this is once a person contracted HIV/AIDS in the 1900 they did not have long to live, but now it is possible for a person to live a close to normal life with HIV/AIDS as long as the patient takes the prescribed medication. As a result the diseases that run in a persons family will also change

The improvement of medicine over the course of the human successes gave great convenience to the people of today. Science has cured and prevented many illnesses from occurring and is on its way to cure some of the most dreadful and harmful illnesses. As the world modernizes due to the industrialization, so does the ways of medicine. Some cures are approached by chance, some, through intense, scientific measures.

There was a trodden in China in the old days, if a doctor wasn’t performing well and his patients either died or were not benefiting from the treatment a lantern was hung outside his home. A doctor was not just there to treat a patient, he was meant to help him stay healthy. Too many lights outside the house meant bad business for the doctor. That’s a simple but effective way of making people aware where to go or not go if you need health care. In today’s world, when the stress of modern lifestyle is churning out more patients than successful individuals it’s not easy to find out or identify where would you get good healthcare services.

The Changes In Medicine In The Nineteenth Century The nineteenth century was one of the most important eras in the history of medicine as many new cures and technologies were discovered. At the beginning, many poor people still lived in houses without proper sanitation, worked in dangerous factories and drank water from polluted rivers. By the end of the century, social conditions had improved, medicine was more complex, treatments were more widely offered and technology was more advanced along with many other improvements. But why did these changes occur?

Before medicine was like it is today there was a much higher fatality rate after getting sick. It didn’t really matter what you got sick with considering treatment was not a very common thing in the 1200’s. Most women died during or after child birth due to the lack of sanitation. There were no cough drops for when people had a sore throat. Things such as the flu would cause death much more frequently just because there was very limited treatment for it in a world where blood circulation was a newfound discovery. One of the restrictions on past medicine is the elements used being readily available. Obviously it wasn’t as easy to get access to things such as magnesium back then as it is today. That fact alone would limit the growth of medicine for some time. But as chemists began making discoveries other fields of science grew as well.