Virdow's Dichotomy: The Frontiers Of Orthodox Medicine

1. Models are analogies that allow us to clarify hypotheses—proposed explanation of relationships between. What roles do models play in testing hypotheses?

The germ theory was proposed by Robert Koch and Louis Pasteur in the 1870s, on the basis that microorganisms were the cause of many diseases.

The bio-medical model of ill health has been at the forefront of western medicine since the end of the eighteenth century and grew stronger with the progress in modern science. This model underpinned the medical training of doctors. Traditionally medicine had relied on folk remedies passed down from generations and ill health was surrounded in superstition and religious lore with sin and evil spirits as the culprit and root of ill health. The emergence of scientific thinking questioned the traditional religious view of the world and is linked to the progress in medical practice and the rise of the biomedical model. Social and historical events and circumstances were an important factor in its development as explanations about disease

(Starr.) Germ theory or “filth theory”, as coined by Charles V. Chaplin, was established in order to help define how environmental health impacts infection was transmitted. Personal hygiene and modern sanitary science became radically popular outlook in the early 19th century that helped aid and control diseases like tuberculosis and veneral disease, improving the health of infant, and other health problems. This growing emphasis created the need for individual health

-The germ theory led to the creation of vaccines, anti-toxins, antibiotics, and the development of laboratory-based pharmacology to help patients to get healthy.

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.

In the 20th century, a lot of remarkable discoveries in medicine, which were created by talent doctors and scientists, have greatly affected the lives of people. In order to create important inventions, many scientists just work by themselves in their unique projects. Nevertheless, some of them work in a similar field and even corporate together in scientific experimentation like E. Donnall Thomas and Gertrude B. Elion. Donnall figured out a bone marrow transplantation treatment for human while Elion discovered a new drug to cure AIDS. Interestingly, E. Donnall Thomas and Gertrude B. Elion have several similarities in their education, families and career achievements.

A little white pill, sold as an over-the-counter drug, lined the shelves of pharmacies across the globe. Originating from the German drug company, Chemie Grütinethal, this pill was advertised to a highly receptive international market and was a success in 1959. Several years later, physicians began to form a link between phocomelia, a birth deformity, and pregnant woman who ingested the German-created drug. That little white pill is known as Thalidomide. Staying in the market for almost six years, Thalidomide changed the lives of mothers and their newborns for the worse making it one of the largest pharmaceutical failures in the course of mankind. Although the horrific effects of distributing Thalidomide in the late 1950s is historically

A professor of anatomy at the University of Copenhagen stated: "Those who drag in the use of blood for internal remedies of diseases appear to misuse it and to sin gravely.... Practitioners of this operation are held in terror by the Divine law.". This shows how religion was a big part of medicine in prehistoric times, and sin was generally to blame for a severe illness or disease.

Hans Selye, MD was born in Vienna and studied medicine in Prague, Paris, and Rome. His interest in the body’s physiological response to illness and disease started in medical school, 1925. The curriculum included viewing patients in the early stages of a variety of infectious diseases. The professor noted that they looked and felt ill, had digestive problems and depression. He described the symptoms as “nonspecific” and useless in attempting to determine the germs responsible. (Hansen,

Thalidomide is a drug that was invented in Germany in the 1950’s. It was originally intended to treat respiratory infections but during testing, it was noted that the drug worked to relieve morning sickness for pregnant women. This new reason allowed the drug to be prescribed to many new patients all over the world. Eventually Thalidomide was discovered to be causing birth defects in all of the pregnant women that were taking it. It caused the fetus to not develop correctly by causing limbs of the body or ears to develop improperly or not develop at all. It also cause spinal cord and digestive system defects as well as problems to the heart and kidneys. Thalidomide stopped being prescribed but not before many children and families were affected worldwide who had taken the drug. It took a couple of years before other countries caught up to realize that thalidomide was causing the birth defects and removed from being an over the counter drug in many countries. It wasn’t until 1961 that it was completely removed after it was confirmed that it was causing birth defects. More than 10000 babies were born with defects and approximately killed 2000 before birth, but fewer than 100 were born here in the U.S.

Thalidomide, heralded as a wonder drug when it was first released into the market, was meant to alleviate morning sickness, lessen the effects of tumours in cancer patients and ease treatment of Leprosy and HIV/AIDS. Sounds great, doesn’t it?

This case, first off, was very hard to read simply because trying to picture the pain and death of this two and a half year old was very saddening. The legal responsibility of parents with critically ill children should be mandatory orthodox medical treatment. I am a firm believer in praying for healing and talking to God, but I am twenty-two years old and that is something that I choose to do; a two year old is not old enough to go to God and talk to Him regarding his or her pain. Society should most definitely require the usage of orthodox medical care , regardless of their religious convictions, for their critically ill children. As a Christian, I do not believe that this particular law would interfere with the First Amendment right to religious

Throughout history until the 19th century, infectious diseases, epidemics, and pandemics were thought to be the manifestation of supernatural forces and little to nothing was truly effective in preventing or treating these devastating threats to society. It was only during the Age of Reason and the Enlightenment that the long-accepted realities of society were questioned and research was conducted based on science and reason that would forever change the world we live in (Kumar, 2007). The science of epidemiology was founded by John Snow’s identification of polluted public water well as the source of an 1854 cholera outbreak in London. Shortly thereafter germ theory began to emerge and science took off.

However, they did not indiscriminately follow Hippocrates and Galen, adapting instead the analytical approach of the classical writers to produce their own rational, structured and logical accounts of medical practice. Ibn Sina’s Canon of Medicine, for example, whilst following in the Hippocratic tradition, offers a far more meticulous and systematic account of humoral theory (Ibn Sina in Brunton (2008), p186). Ibn Sina’s Canon of Medicine is possibly the most famous example of a systemised medical compendia, that, according to Brunton, sets ‘practice firmly on a theoretical basis, which allowed practitioners to approach the process of diagnosing and treating patients on a logical footing’ (Brunton (2008),