Technology has changed the world in an unimaginable way over the last century. With that, healthcare and the medical industry has undergone an immense revolution.
Medicine has helped more people live longer and healthier lives than ever thought possible, and the medical world is still evolving at a rapid pace year by year.
In this article, I will discuss some of the most significant medical revolutions that changed healthcare in history.
The Most Significant Medical Revolutions in History
There have been many medical revolutions in the history of medical science that have changed the world. From the invention of the hearing aid to the Polio vaccine, it is difficult to count all the medical revolutions which have dramatically changed people’s lives.
Only a few decades back, people would die of simple diseases like diarrhea. However, the world has changed in terms of healthcare and it has changed for the better.
Let’s look at some of the medical revolutions in medical history and ways that technology changed healthcare in a significant way!
The Discovery of Vaccines
Before 1796, communicable diseases were one of the biggest problems and most dangerous aspects of life -especially air-borne ones. The biggest problem was that people were not aware of the airborne nature of the disease, causing a huge amount of problems.
However, the year 1796 changed everything when Dr. Edward Jenner introduced the small pox vaccine.
Vaccination allowed for the control of a variety of diseases and has saved millions of lives.
This was definitely one of the most important medical revolutions in history considering the number of lives that were saved and are still being saved because of vaccination.
Use Of Antibiotics And Antivirals
Antibiotics were first used in the 1940s, and have remained very relevant in the treatment of patients for a wider variety of sicknesses. Antibiotics are a family of prescription medications used to treat fungal infections, bacterial infections, and some parasites.
Although vaccination protected people from some of the communicable diseases, it was not until Sir Alexander Fleming discovered the antibiotic effects of Penicillium notatum that the communicable diseases were dealt a lethal blow.
The discovery of antibiotics and their application over a wide range of bacteria’s meant the bacteria were left helpless.
Antivirals and antibiotics have saved many lives, which describes how important the discovery of Sir Fleming was.
Antibiotics help to kill bacteria, by stopping their growth and reproduction. The body’s immune system can fight off some viruses even before they cause illness, while others such as colds must simply run their course and antibiotics do not work against them.
One of the more distinguished forms of sickness that antibiotics have made a difference in are STDs. STDs used to be a terminal or serious disease. Now, an STD Panel Test is recommended, and then antibiotics are prescribed for treating a range of STDs from the blue waffle disease to gonorrhea and more.
Antibiotics are an excellent medicine and a true medical revolution!
Health Insurance
Although health insurance is a widely debated topic in the United States and the rest of the world, the invention of health insurance has been an enormous revolution. According to an article published on NPR,
“Before the birth of modern medicine, hospitals were poorhouses where the indigent went to die. Then came the advent of effective medicines, especially antibiotics, along with a revolution in medical schools.”
With this medical revolution and new level of medical care, healthcare became much more expensive. Therefore, the invention of health insurance allowed more people than ever in history to have access to high-quality health care.
Since learning basic first aid and CPR is not going to protect you from everything life throws at you, getting affordable healthcare to save money from places such as iSelect allows people access to the best health care at affordable prices.
Furthermore, for those who don’t understand the process of getting the best health insurance, healthcare revenue cycle management companies and insurance brokers are available to help figure everything out.
These companies are available to help people with all kinds of insurance, like explaining ad&d insurance, and can provide you the best advice.
Without the revolution of health insurance, it wouldn’t be possible for so many people to get quality healthcare.
Now, there are even services such as TeleMedicine that is offered by various health insurance companies!
One of the most exciting innovative ways to receive information about your health is through Online Medical Clinics that can save you time, money, and a lot of stress!
One notable example of this is the Cleveland Clinic’s MyConsult Medical Second Opinion program, which can help connect you to top of the line medical professionals; without having to travel to them. Another example is The LOC, a private hospital in the United Kingdom that specializes in second opinions for cancer treatments.
This form of healthcare is an incredible revelation in the world right now.
A unique emerging online medical site is DoctorSpring. Amongst many other treatments, you can fight depression with DoctorSpring due to their wide base of talented psychiatrists, who will help you cope with all mental issues.
Sites such as this are a huge relief to patients that need a specific type of doctor, but cannot afford to travel around the world to find a certain expert.
Getting an online medical opinion is great, especially after you have seen your primary care doctor. Online medical opinions are less expensive and are a terrific way to fit an extra medical opinion into your budget.
Furthermore, the invention of TeleMedicine has allowed for the adoption of outsourcing medical answering services to grow, which further allows doctors to see more patients. The “distance” between patient and doctor has never been smaller.
A professional and reliable Medical Answering Service can allow a doctor to work in peace knowing that appointments will flow into their office on schedule. A helping hand from medical service providers can really help in ensuring that the appointments are either concluded or modified/canceled, minimizing no-shows.
This medical revolution saves people time and allows more people to get treated by a doctor than ever before!
Health insurance changed healthcare forever, and technology has continuously improved the way healthcare can be offered.
The Birth Control Pill
Population explosion is a problem in today’s world. Consider what the scenario would have been had there not been birth control pills?
Until the last century, women often gave birth to a large number of children, and they often died in the process of delivery. Nobody cared to restrict the birth of additional children as food was in abundance, and life was simpler; requiring only a modest income to live “well.”
Through the years, researchers have found many ways and means to bring down the rate of population increase and educate the general masses regarding the benefits of population control.
Now, unwanted pregnancy can be prevented in many ways. Birth control devices in vogue are latex condoms, birth control pills, diaphragm, birth control patch, vaginal ring, hormonal injections, copper IUD’s and Hormonal IUD ’s.
The most popular ones are latex condoms and birth control pills, as they are the easiest ways to prevent unwanted pregnancies. However, contraception rate is not 100% with any of these devices.
The first birth control pill, Enovid, was ready for use in the year 1950.
Contraceptive pills have become very popular in the last six decades since they are “pregnancy proof” up to 99% if taken as advised by your doctor or trained educators of birth control.
The mechanism of birth control pills is two-pronged. First, they prevent women from ovulating (stopping the release of eggs from the ovary), and second, they cause the cervical mucus to thicken.
This prevents the sperms of males to penetrate and fertilize the ova if the woman is ovulating at that time. Birth control pills imitate the body’s response to pregnancy.
Many brands of oral contraceptive pills for regular use to prevent pregnancy are available, which is convenient. Prior consultation with a doctor is absolutely necessary to get the most suitable pill prescription taking into account your health condition.
The making of birth control pills has helped control the human population,.
The invention of the birth control pill can be considered as a medical revolution and a social revolution as women now have the right to select whether they wanted to bear a child or not.
Use Of Surgical Anesthetics And Antisepsis
Surgery is painful but can you believe that it was much more painful before the use of surgical anesthetics began?
On October 16, 1846, William T.G. Morton showed the world what ether could do in relieving pain and deactivating pain receptors while doing surgery.
This meant that pain during surgery was reduced by a huge amount! Another invention that took place in the same year was antisepsis, which allowed doctors to use instruments that are free of diseases like tetanus.
These two inventions increased the probability a person surviving once he or she underwent surgery.
Cancer Treatment & Prevention
Cancer has a huge impact on society throughout the world. The estimated number of new cancer cases for 2019 is around 1,762,450, and the number of cancer deaths estimated is estimated to be around 606,880 in the United States. However, the ability to treat and prevent cancer is a huge medical revolution.
For starters, scientists have now been able to track the reasons for the development of cancer, which has helped people reduce the likelihood of contracting it.
According to www.eatright.org, one-third of every cancer-related death is linked with the lifestyle behavior of individuals.
Now, when a person is detected with cancer, normally, tissue culture is performed in order to understand if cancer has spread to different parts of the body. Previously people did not even know that human tissue culture was different from plant tissue culture. Now, we can use human tissue cultures to understand how much cancer has spread.
Along with that, testing procedures such as using Chromatin IP is used in laboratories for the detection of cancer, especially lung cancer, from clinical samples.
Additionally, we also have a greater understanding of which vitamins and minerals prevent cancer. For example, beta-carotene is now well-known to help our bodies fight against cancer, so carrots or sweet potatoes (foods high in beta-carotene) can be considered some of the best cancer-fighting foods.
With these unique advancements in medicine, cancer has become preventable, and often curable.
Radiological Imaging of Body Parts
Imagine how difficult it would be for a doctor to just look at a patient and predict what he has been suffering from or what is the level of impact of injury he has suffered? This was the fate of doctors before the discovery of radiological imaging of body parts.
The radiological imaging of body parts lead to unexpected improvement in the history of medical science in a variety of ways!
DNA Technology
DNA testing was first developed in 1985 by Sir Alec Jefferys, and since that time there have been leaps and bounds as far as what DNA technology can do. Currently, it is a very popular method of research and discovery.
Some of DNA testing’s most common uses are for improving the criminal justice system, determining paternity, discovering health problems, and discovering cures for diseases.
There have been great strides for health sciences with new and innovative DNA technology being made available.
DNA health testing kits analyze your blood and can inform you about any health-related heart conditions (such as coronary artery disease, hypertension, your cardiovascular health, etc.) you may not have previously been aware of.
Genetic testing tells you exactly how healthy you are (or are not), and shows you what you can do to build a healthier lifestyle for yourself.
Doctors can analyze samples taken from patients to get the information they need to perform a diagnosis and get the results they are seeking. Blood tests let doctors see the DNA of a tumor (for example), so that they can then decide which forms of treatment may be best for the patient.
Having the ability to look at tumor DNA this way allows doctors to determine immunotherapies that will be most appropriate for the patient, mitigating potential risks to the patient that certain treatments may cause.
There have also been leaps in DNA folding, that has an impact on the way diseases behave, DNA microscopy, which can imprint physical images onto DNA, and so much more.
Sensors & Wearbles for Monitoring Your Health
Sensors are used in a hospital setting to monitor a patient’s vitals and make sure everything is functioning as it should, but recent technological innovations have led to the invention of portable sensors that patients may one day be able to wear outside of hospitals.
This would mean that people suffering from chronic diseases like heart disease could be monitored remotely by their doctors while continuing life as normal. Learn more about hospital sensors at Sensoronics.
Going one step further from sensors themselves, smart wearables could come in any form, and will be able to detect a person’s mood, communications, and skin activity to provide useful – maybe even life-saving – information to the wearer. Microsoft has already designed a smart bra, favored because of its close proximity to the heart.
Wearables like these could be used in everything from preventing overeating and detecting illnesses like cancer and heart disease.
Gastric Bypass Surgery
Gastric bypass surgery is a huge medical revolution because it has made a significant impact in the fight against obesity.
Gastric bypass surgery offers a long-lasting solution for obesity. In fact, a study reported that patients who had done a gastric bypass maintained a 27% weight loss even after 12 years of the surgery!
For obese patients suffering from Type 2 Diabetes, gastric bypass surgery helps them in multiple ways.
Gastric bypass has been shown to allow patients remain free from insulin and other medication for a period of at least three years from the date of the surgery, and in the previous study, it was shown that the patients were completely free from Type 2 Diabetes even after 12 years of the surgery.
In order to qualify for gastric surgery, a person must be classified as obese. This means that you need to have a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 30 or more. If the BMI is less than 30, then the surgeon will generally not recommend the procedure.
There are some side effects of gastric bypass surgery including dental problems, issues with digestion, sagging skin due to weight loss, or hair loss, but all these are only temporary and will pass.
To learn more about gastric bypass surgery, check out Bay Bariatrics.
Concluding Thoughts – How Technology Changed Healthcare Forever
Technology has allowed for nearly all of the medical revolutions that have taken place over the last few hundred years. Technology has made formerly terminal diseases a non-factor in the world today, and it has made the hope for an easier future possible.
There are many other additional ways that technology has changed healthcare forever, these are just a few of the most important medical revolutions in history!
