Modern Medicine Has Impacted Human Life

Most American citizens would agree that modern medicine has drastically changed American Society. The progression of medicine has impacted American lives in multiple ways. It has changed how the United States military uses medicine, how American scientists research medicine, and how everyday American citizens use medicine. Just 100 years ago, the people of the time period would not have been able to comprehend the medical advances that today’s society experiences, and what postmodern societies will continue to experience. Over time, the progression of medicine affected American soldiers during times of war, changed how diseases were discovered and treated, and impacted the way 21st century Americans view medicine and medical professionals.

The pharmaceutical industry is one of the most powerful and greedy industries in our country, with a goal to make as large a profit as possible, at the expense of the sick.

The logic and principles of medieval medicine shaped those of Modern medicine. Never was there a more efficient method perfected, so much that it remained through history through so many hundreds of years. Today’s concepts of diagnosis, relationships with the church, anatomy, surgery, hospitals and training, and public health were established in the Middle Ages.

It hasn’t changed that the average person doesn’t like to feel pain or be ill. The evolution of medicine from 1776 to 1938 in the United States depended on the knowledge of current diseases and treatment at that time. The major diseases during this time were pneumonia, influenza, tuberculosis, gastrointestinal infections, heart disease and cerebrovascular disease.1 Ironically, much of those diseases still exist today. Over time, the world’s demand for drugs for any type of illness or disease drastically skyrocketed. Was the medicine really working or were people psyched into believing they had an illness? The diagnosis and treatment was incorrect many times, resulting in “shoulda, coulda, and wouldas” when dealing with diagnosis and medicine. Without a scientific basis, medical doctors, such as Benjamin Rush were ineffective with proper treatment, and quacks promoted strange treatments as to say: Yackedy Quack, Don’t Talk Back. By the end of the 20th Century, one could say American medicine was on the rise and researchers and physician were much more respected.

In Joel Lexchin’s article “Pharmaceutical innovation: Can we live forever? A commentary on Schnittker and Karandinos” he addresses the article made by Schnittker and Karandinos about the progression of pharmaceuticals and whether or not we have advanced enough to significantly increase our life expectancy. Lexchin uses a plethora of rhetoric to persuade the reader into believing his argument, mostly relying upon logos, chiefly facts, to appeal to the logical and sensible side of the readers. His argument is not limited to logos though, as there are faint traces of pathos, the longing to live forever, as well as ethos, society’s needs for further advances, to further convince the reader.

Some people have questioned whether the widespread use of chemical drugs is ethical. The argument is that the drugs and ECT are dehumanising and take away any sense of personal responsibility or control, as there are significant side effect related to drugs and risks associated with ECT, such as brain damage and even death. People in psychotic

The rise of medicalization has been affected by many social factors, and has caused a winning-and-losing situation for those caught in the middle. In Peter Conrad’s article The Shifting Engines of Medicalization, he explains how medicalization was constructed by three certain factors: first, the authority within the medical profession; second, the activities of social movements and interest groups; and third, the rise in behavioral pediatrics in terms of medical control of childhood diseases, and directed organizational professional activities (Conrad, 2005, p. 4). There have been debates that some things should no longer be treated as an illness in the medical sphere. Conrad explains how the pharmaceutical industries are more aggressive in promoting their products to physicians and to the public, which is empowered by the consumers becoming increasingly active in their demand for medical services and treatments (2005, p. 5, 9). Companies are marketing diseases (creating “epidemics” and drug scares within a society) and then selling the drugs to treat those diseases (Conrad, 2005, p. 6). Society and these companies make it seem as though these disorders and diseases can happen to anyone at any time.

This distinction, between the legitimate use of psychoactive medicines and the sub rosa use of drugs, is more vexed than ever. We have seen nearly 45 years of the War of Drugs… outcries about the safety of our children and accompanying uproars about nicotine in e-cigarettes, caffeine in energy drinks, “synthetic marijuana”, and heroin… club drugs, designer drugs, experimental drugs, homemade methamphetamine… We have pharmaceutical commercials on TV…to the point that any thinking person would be forgiven for questioning the

The high prices set by pharmaceutical companies for drugs allows the companies to continue researching, developing, and producing new drugs. As new diseases are discovered, new medications must be discovered in order to treat them.

Medicine has developed in many ways throughout time and is a necessity in our society. People would die of the common cold if there was no medicine in our world. Sure some natural remedies have helped people through the years but nothing has changed lives like medicine. Imagine having the common cold and realizing you might not make it. This is a simple cold that nowadays can be treated with a simple dosage of cough syrup. The 1800’s in particular is what made scientist decide to investigate more medicine. I will also explain how people lived and how society moved as a whole in the 1800’s till now.

Medicine has been used since ancient times, but it has greatly developed through the centuries. Today, people have doctors, nurses, surgeons, therapists, and many other individuals in the health field. Society’s definition of a healthy lifestyle, and the way people live, has greatly changed, and it has given most people a new perspective on society 's health. Before medications and doctors, people often died, or had no way to recover from illnesses and disease, because there were no cures. Advances in medicine are made every day. These advances could be a new allergy medication, a new vaccine to prevent a deadly disease, or a new way of performing surgeries, but all of these advances have one thing in common: they can save lives and make a better America.

Medicine has been around for a time way before ours. The way it has changed over the past 100 years is insane! A lot of people talk about how certain medication has completely changed their life in a better way. For instance, ADHD medicine is a big part for some people. My younger cousin would not be able to sit in a classroom for 8 hours if he didn’t have that ADHD medication. The surgeries from the 1900’s to today's time have advanced a lot. There was no such thing as a simple procedure back then as there are thousands of simple procedures that are being done today. Without technology we wouldn’t be able to perform CT scans, which plays a big part in saving people's lives. Back in the early 1900’s brain scans would’ve saved millions of lives.

Even though the pharmaceutical industry has made great improvements to human health and quality of life, like creating drugs for the treatment of AIDS, cancer, and other diseases, an increasing tension is growing between the public and the industry. These thoughts are fueled by issues such as drug pricing, affordable health care, and the battle against epidemic diseases in third world countries; social critics wonder whether this multi-billion dollar industry is giving enough back to the community and fulfilling its social responsibility.

Solzhenitsyn is illustrating that our society is given “too much” freedom. As a result people cannot handle it, resulting in abuse and misuse of the rights bestowed onto us. This is exceptionally true in the world of medicine; meant for treatment of illness, has led abuse of prescription drugs. How are our prescription drugs being abused? First, an understanding of basic rights to treatment in relation to prescription medications recently enacted.

Over the course of many centuries, medical technology has developed to a great extent. Studies show that recent equipment has evolved more in the last ten to twenty years than in the past thousand years. Before human time, people learned to treat themselves by just using natural substances. Now-a-days, our hi-tech systems in the medical field have been created for the most effective tools for a high level of patient care. While they advance the tools, it will then allow for quicker diagnosis, less pain, and fewer costs, which in the end will help save more lives. Some people are accepting that modern technology can buy them more time to live while others might find it quite alarming because they fear