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Five medical inventions that changed our lives
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From the appearance of the first dental fillings among Cro-Magnons (14-13 thousand years BC) to the development of 3D printers for printing prostheses, many discoveries have been made and dozens of inventions have been created that are designed to make treatment more effective and human life easier. We will tell only about the most important ones – those that revolutionized both medicine and people’s lives.
Antibiotics: Penicillin by Alexander Fleming
One of the most important medical discoveries of the 1928th century happened by accident: the bacteriologist and physician Alexander Fleming, who was distinguished by the extreme carelessness, simply forgot to wash the Petri dish with the staphylococcus culture it contained. Within a month, a mold of Penicillium notatum developed in the cup, the appearance of which caused the massive death of staphylococcus. As a result, in 6, the bacteriologist managed to isolate penicillin, an antimicrobial substance based on XNUMX-aminopenicillanic acid, which suppressed the activity of the bacterium.
Interesting: It is believed that the spread of antibiotics in medical practice (although it began decades after Fleming’s discovery) has increased the average life expectancy by 33 years.
There have been many attempts to stimulate the heart with electrical impulses. But it wasn’t until 1958 that implantable stimulators appeared. From that moment on, doctors took the path of miniaturization of the device: with the advent of compact lithium-ion batteries and programmable operating schemes, they managed to create reliable and inexpensive pacemakers. And already in 1997 the number of operations with the installation of these devices reached 300 thousand.
Although in the Middle Ages people rarely lived to see age-related changes in vision, other eye diseases were very common due to unsanitary conditions, poor nutrition and, for example, many years of working with small parts in production. Poor vision was a serious problem until around 1280, glasses were invented in Italy. However, for a long time they remained an inaccessible luxury item for the majority. First, there were models for the correction of hyperopia (farsightedness), then – helping with myopia (myopia). Since then, they have come a much longer way than in previous centuries.
And now not only lenses close to the ideal for myopia and hyperopia have appeared, but also special models for people with presbyopia, or age-related farsightedness. For example, these are multifocal lenses that allow you to see objects clearly at any distance. Another example of advances in medical optics is Transitions lenses. They quickly adapt to changes in lighting: they darken in the bright sun and become transparent into the room. This protects our retinas well from harmful UV radiation. It is noteworthy that thanks to the lenses you can wear one pair of glasses for both the correction of visual impairments and for protection from the sun.
Vladimir Zolotarev, ophthalmologist and head of Essilor Academy Russia:
“Modern lens manufacturing technologies have reached unprecedented heights and are fundamentally different from those used 100, 50 and even 20 years ago. It would seem that there is nowhere to move on, but this is not so. We constantly invest in the development of new solutions for medical optics. Yesterday it was , today —Transitions, and tomorrow – something even more convenient and perfect ”.
The so-called X-rays were discovered by Wilhelm Konrad Roentgen in 1895. And the very next year, the first X-ray of living tissue appeared and the discovery began to be used to diagnose fractures. Since then, the technique has been improved, and now digital X-ray diagnostics is actively used.
Like medical optics, prosthetics is now developing rapidly, but it still began in the 3th-XNUMXth centuries BC. e., in Ancient Greece. It was there that the first limb prostheses appeared. In the XNUMXth century in France, Ambroise Paré created the first mechanical prosthesis, and at the end of the XNUMXth century, XNUMXD printing technologies began to be used for the manufacture of prostheses.