Medical Pioneers - Thick Skins Only Need Apply - Health - Medicine

<p>In the mid 19th century, a Hungarian doctor, Ignaz Semmelweis, suggested a way in which the infant mortality rate could be reduced. Unfortunately, it was far too revolutionary for his time. He said doctors should wash their hands before delivering babies. He was ridiculed for such heresy and dismissed from his hospital posts. He became insane and died in an asylum.</p>

<p>Dr Carlos Findlay felt certain the cause of yellow fever was the work of the mosquito, but was unable to prove it. For such an outrageous suggestion, that the disease could be caused by an insect and not by contaminated faeces or the dank marsh air, he was laughed off the rostrum at a medical meeting. </p>

<p>Twenty years later Dr Walter Reed found the good doctor was right after all, but his colleagues thought he was as crazy as Findlay and did all in their power to discourage him and his experiments.</p>

<p>Joseph Lister was none too popular for advocating antiseptic surgery. He was hooted out of the best hospitals and ridiculed by his colleagues.</p>

<p>"Penicillin sat on the shelf for twelve years while I was called a quack" Sir Alexander Fleming.</p>

<p>Dr Crawford W Long should have kept his home address a secret. The discovery of ether anaesthesia brought with it a howling mob throwing stones outside his home. Putting people to sleep shouldn't be allowed, they cried. A few broken windows would show Dr Long a thing or two.</p>

<p>The brain researcher Frederic Gibbs demonstrated one of the first electro-encephalographs in America. At a meeting of the American Medical Association in 1934, the machine was publicly called a fake by eminent physicians.</p>

<p>Dr Emil Grubb was the first to use radiation on cancer patients in 1896. Leading doctors scathingly denounced him and tried to drive him out of his hospital posts. 37 years later it became medically accepted.</p>

<p>The cure for beri-beri was described by the Chinese in the 9th century. All you had to do, they said, was eat rice polish. Eleven centuries later the West finally gave up looking for the infectious agent and accepted that it was caused by a vitamin deficiency. The cure? Eat something with thiamine in it, like rice polish for instance.</p>

<p>It was back in the 16th century when it was first noted that eating fresh plants and fruits on voyages prevented and cured scurvy. In 1747 James Lind, a Scottish physician, carried out a study confirming the earlier findings and in 1753 wrote a book on the subject. It took the British Admiralty 48 years to ponder over Lind's study before they ordered a daily ration of fresh lime juice for sailors. With that, the disease that ravished crews for so long disappeared from the Navy. </p>

<p>The British Board of Trade were not so sure though. Where were the randomised placebo controlled double blind cross over studies? Let's not be so hasty. A few sips of lime juice is a big price to pay to save a human life. Limes don't grow on trees you know! </p>

<p>And so they waited and waited and waited. After seeing Navy seamen (Limeys) living and merchant seamen dying for a further 70 years, the Board of Trade passed a similar lime juice regulation for the merchant marine in 1865. Unlike the beri-beri story, it took a mere three hundred years to translate empirical observation into action.</p>

<p>The past is the past of course. We now live in enlightened times. In the 21st century we can rest assured that if some new discovery in medicine, like a cure for cancer or heart disease were to be found, it would be clutched eagerly by the medical and drug establishment - whose only concern is to get sick people well - and quickly used to heal the world. How fortunate we are.</p>

<p>I must now rest my pen, since I need to investigate the pig that just flew past my window.</p>

<p>
</p>

<br><br><br><br><a href="http://iautoblog.com">iAutoblog</a> the premier <a href="http://iautoblog.com">autoblogger</a> software