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Bioengineering and Ethics
Published in Howard Winet, Ethics for Bioengineering Scientists, 2021
There were many successful adaptations of 18th- and 19th-century scientific advances to the practice of medicine. Surgery and childbirth were made safer and endurable by antisepsis and anesthesia, with minimal side effects. Robert Koch (1843–1910) and Louis Pasteur (1822–1895) confirmed the germ theory of disease and used it to develop vaccines and sterilization treatments. Pasteur scientifically demonstrated the germ theory of disease by infecting lab animals with cultures isolated from carriers of the microorganisms. Koch formulated a procedure for scientifically demonstrating a causal relationship between a specific organism and a disease. The procedure, known as “Koch’s postulates” established a standard for pathology, and may be summarized as follows: (1) Show that the suspect organism is consistently present in diseased tissue in a characteristic state. (2) Isolate and grow the organism in laboratory cultures. (3) Experimentally induce the disease by injecting pure cultures of it in a subjects susceptible to it (Walker et al. 2006).
Introduction
Published in Antonietta Morena Gatti, Stefano Montanari, Advances in Nanopathology From Vaccines to Food, 2021
Antonietta Morena Gatti, Stefano Montanari
That century-old theory, supported by all top 'scientists', was finally replaced, but only after having defeated a very strong resistance, by germ theory, infectious diseases are caused by microorganisms. It was Gerolamo Fracastoro in the mid-16th century who first intuited the phenomenon, but it was only the works of Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch which provided the irrefutable evidence with research begun in the 1850s and finally accepted, not always willingly, in the 1880s, Just to get an idea of what the scientific approach used to be, the great Rudolf Virchow (died in 1902) ridiculed Pasteur and boasted that he had never brought his eye near a microscope. One of its strong points to demonstrate how wrong Pasteur was, was, 'If microbes were responsible for illnesses, ubiquitous as they are, we were all ill.' An argument which shows an insufficient knowledge of how biology works but an argument which resurfaces again about the pathologies induced by particles.
A Brief Introduction to Virology
Published in Rae-Ellen W. Kavey, Allison B. Kavey, Viral Pandemics, 2020
Rae-Ellen W. Kavey, Allison B. Kavey
Bacteria are the smallest microbes which can survive independently because they carry all the necessary cellular machinery and genetic material to produce energy and reproduce within a single cell. Confirmation of bacteria as the cause of disease transformed the practice of medicine, and by early in the twentieth century, practical extension of the germ theory led to many improved public health sanitation practices like water treatment and sewage disposal. Public education increased awareness of the ways in which bacteria thrive and this supported improved personal hygiene practices like handwashing and safe food preparation. While antibiotics as specific treatments for bacterial infections did not appear until much later in the twentieth century, public health improvements reinforced by comprehension of the germ theory of disease significantly decreased deaths from infectious diseases in the early 1900s.
The Texas Society of Pathologists: molded by the legacy of pathology and focused on excellence in medicine for 100 years and beyond
Published in Baylor University Medical Center Proceedings, 2021
Pathology developed as a medical science along with physics, chemistry, anatomy, histology, physiology, biochemistry, and microbiology in Europe after the Renaissance.10,11 In the 18th century, stalwarts, including Giovanni Battista Morgagni and Carl von Rokitansky, established the scientific investigation of causes of disease based on performance of numerous meticulous autopsies.10–14 In the mid-19th century, the next great advance in pathology was led by Rudolf Virchow (1821–1902). Virchow is the quintessence of the prepared mind succeeding by being at the right place (Germany) at the right time (improved light microscope).15 In 1858, Virchow established the scientific discipline of cellular pathology with his publication “Die Cellularpathologie in ihrer Begründung auf physiologische und pathologische Gewebenlehre.” The title, “Cellular pathology as based upon physiological and pathological histology,” captures the essence of cytopathology, surgical pathology, and autopsy pathology as practiced today. The 19th century saw other major developments of relevance to pathology. Claude Bernard advanced the field of physiology and established the importance of biological experimentation in medicine.16 Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch were instrumental in formulating the germ theory of disease and the science of microbiology. Élie Metchnikoff and Julius Cohnheim among others made important observations providing a foundation for cellular physiology and immunology.17,18
Masks, Politics, Culture and Health
Published in Issues in Mental Health Nursing, 2020
But in the case of a pandemic such as COVID-19, why do some countries take to wearing masks and others do not? The reasons are many and include cultural, political and health-related concerns. Cultural reasons are cited for covering the face in many East Asian countries, specifically China, Korea and Japan. Yang (2014) relates that the underlying reason could be philosophical: All three countries have been broadly influenced by Taoism and the health precepts of Traditional Chinese Medicine, in which “qi”—breath and breathing—are seen as a central element in good health. So breathing is critical to maintain good qi in the body. Meanwhile, the intake of “feng,” or noxious wind, is considered the most potent and common of Traditional Chinese Medicine’s external causes of disease. The bottom line is that in East Asia, the predilection toward using face coverings to prevent exposure to bad air is something that predates the germ theory of disease, and extends into the very foundations of East Asian culture (Yang, 2014).
Facts and ideas from anywhere
Published in Baylor University Medical Center Proceedings, 2019
In 1850, the US had 40,755 people calling themselves physicians, more per capita than the country would have in 1970. Few had formal medical education, and many were charlatans. The stethoscope appeared in 1816. The first dental school opened in Baltimore in 1839. Anesthesia came in the 1840s. Clean water supplies in urban areas greatly reduced epidemics of water-borne diseases such as typhoid and cholera, which had ravaged cities for centuries. In the 1850s and 1860s, it was discovered that many diseases were caused by specific microorganisms, as was the infection of wounds, surgical and other. The germ theory of disease, the most powerful idea in the history of medicine, converted medicine into a science. Most of the advances in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, however, were preventive rather than curative. Louis Pasteur and others, using their new knowledge of microorganisms, began developing vaccines: rabies, whooping cough, and diphtheria. And then vitamin deficiencies such as pellagra began to decline in the early 20th century. When milk pasteurization began to be widely mandated around that time, the death rate among children plunged. In 1891, the death rate for American children in the first year of life was 125 per 1000. By 1925, it had been reduced to 16 per 1000 and life expectancy of Americans began to dramatically rise.