The Evolution Of Medicine During The Early Nineteenth Century

In 18th century America, medicine was in a transition mode. While some pre-modern practices were still around, the 18th century saw the beginnings of a new modern medical practice. Replacing the passed down wisdom from the ancient world was clinical observation, the first American medical school, and experimental science, along with many physicians beginning to replace midwives. During the 18th century, a transition from pre-modern practices and theories to modern medical practice occurred because of medical education and the growth of hospitals, advances in medical procedures, and different types of medical practitioners.

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.

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.

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?

Have you ever wondered what our Healthcare system was like in the 1800’s? Have you never wondered what they did to cure disease, treat broken bones, how society back then as a culture acted, and among other things why woman had been the main pioneer of this field? This is what my research topic consists of and below you’ll find my opinions and sources that I have used to come to the conclusion I have to illuminate the Healthcare system in the 1800’s.

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.

Medicine and health sciences are the results of attempts to cure diseases and slow death, but in the beginning of medical research a lot of it was the result of curiosity and a desire to understand how the human body works; what makes us human. In Colonial America, the practice of medicine was more of a philosophy than a true science. Medicine in the beginning of the American settlements was compounded because of disease, poor sanitation, lack of medical knowledge and conflict between the church and physicians. But the real growth of medical knowledge and wanting to know more about the human body and how to heal it began around the early 1820s.

Early 1900 Treatment begins in the U.S. Physicians come organized to make the American Medical Association.

Healthcare in America was very limited during the early 1800s but advanced during the 1900s. One of the most critical scientific discoveries was made by Alexander Fleming in 1928 when he found a way to fight infection utilizing penicillin (Ho, 1999). This provided a way to treat infection and save lives. Also, facilities, organizational structure and training of health care were limited along with advancements in medicine and technology. However the expansion of heath care facilities advanced with the adoption of the Hill-Burton Act that provided federal funds matched by state/local governments to construct 10,748 healthcare facilities ranging from nursing homes, mental health and public hospitals (Thomas, 2006). Prior to this there were

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.

“War is the only proper school for a surgeon” - Hippocrates. That would be the case in the early 20th century. The early 20th century is commonly associated with war, blood shed and conflict. During this time is when lots of people died. People died due to many things; war or battle, lack of medical care, or even due to an epidemic. Medical care was rough back then, the shortage of doctors and the lack of medical facilities made the death toll higher. Today, we see less people die due to epidemics, lack of medical care and even less due to battle. Thats all possible because medical care during the 20th century is very different from today, given that today we have better facilities, more doctors, and more advanced technology.

Many ancient civilizations, such as the Romans, Greeks, and Egyptians, pushed medical knowledge forward until the Middle Ages, when medical knowledge was believed to have slowed down. However, that is not the case. The Middle Ages were a time of change and improvement, they shaped the modern world. The Middle Ages revolutionized medical practices, physicians linked filth to the spread of disease, many practical diagnoses and treatments for common illnesses were discovered, and medical training programs in universities became well established.

“To Live On”, a 2005 art installation composed of roses and infusion bags by Min Jeong Seo, elegantly captures the idea of medical advancement of a double edged sword. Seo’s art piece involves fifty long stemmed roses, eerily suspended with the blooms perfectly preserved in infusion bags, while the stems hang freely, drying and decaying at their own pace. It’s an apt visual metaphor that showcases the good and bad consequences of constant medical research and development, one that addresses the concepts of “playing God” and where quality of life gives way to mere extension of it. While scientific progress has given society increasingly effective therapies and has allowed us to extend our collective life span, it has also led us into increasingly woolly territory where we must consider if genetically typing fetuses, blanket prescription writing or a systematic emphasis on tertiary care is compatible with a higher quality of life than if our bodies were left to their own devices. Unpacking these issues requires a degree of separation away from the medical field and the patients, practitioners and occasional overcommitment to scientific dogma that introduces biases and cloudy judgement into the question of how society should use its technology. This core tension has always fascinated me and has inspired me to constantly ask if the newest discovery is actually the best, or if a simpler, more effective solution already exists and someone just hasn’t

Although it 's deeper philosophical meanings and historical validity may be endlessly debated, Foucault 's trend setting 1963 work Birth of the Clinic is an optimistic, even Whiggish exercise in post-modernity. Foucault detailed an emerging structure of systematised clinical practice that grew out of the French Revolution, one which had in which ultimately been to the benefit of the citizenry. The increasingly uncertain position of the traditional, mystical, Aristotelian physician was saved in a supposed age of rationality through the growth of medical teaching, civil structures of patient care, and an overriding trust in the perception (or, in his words, "gaze") of a select group of varied individuals1. This was, in short, everything that defined the stereotype of mid-twentieth century Western medicine2, bar compartmentalised laboratory research into disease and pathology.

Imagine you are injured or sick and have sought a doctor’s help. Although you trusted your doctor, something, something seemingly very in control of the doctor, went wrong. You are angry and confused, but also think of the commonality of medical malpractice. So, why do doctors, who are supposed to help, harm? Though many flaws influence it, malpractice can be, and often is unintentional. Most doctors aren’t trained to harm their patients. Inexperience and lack of medical discovery led to unintentional suffering of the patient. Personal flaws, like lack of willingness to abandon previous medical methods and shortcomings in communication also harm patients. Further reasons why doctors harm are socio-medical understandings that breed hate, prejudices stemming from a society’s belief about certain people, such as the medical practice under the Nazi regime. Additionally, displayed in the case of Ignác Semmelweis, judgement of one to oneself can be detrimental to any progress one’s ideas could make. We will examine these concepts through Jerome Groopman’s “Flesh-and-Blood Decision Making”, Sherwin Nuland’s The Doctors’ Plague and Barbara Bachrach’s “In the Name of Public Health”. Those who practice medicine are, unfortunately, unfree from the imperfections that plague all of humanity. Through these intimate and varied faults, doctors do harm.