Question.1468 - Week 1: Discussion - Discoveries Impacting Medicine     33 unread replies.1919 replies. Discoveries Impacting Medicine - Topic Description Many crucial discoveries have paved the way for modern medicine. Choose 3 important discoveries impacting medicine and explain why you think they were crucial to healthcare delivery. Choose any three from Table 1-1. Discussion Guidelines: Each week you will have a topic to answer and then respond to at least two classmates. This means, that if you follow the minimum posting requirements you will have one main substantive answer in each thread, and one response to at least two classmates. Altogether 3 posts, 2 of which will be on different days of the week. Be sure to check in if you have questions.  Grading rubric for discussion posting per thread: Main post - 10 points (high quality) Response posts - 10 points (total of all responses) Post by Wednesday - 5 points    Table 1-1 Discoveries Impacting Medicine William Harvey proved the continuous circulation of the blood within a contained system; and Aselli discovered lymphatic vessels through experiments on animals, leading to a theory attributing cancer to lymph abnormalities. Lymphatic drainage became the key factor in developing more extensive surgical removal of cancer. Dutch amateur scientist Anton van Leeuwenhoek began using a microscope to study organisms invisible to the naked eye (now called microorganisms, microbes, or germs). Leeuwenhoek discovered certain microbes that later became known as bacteria. English physician Edward Jenner discovered a safe method of making people immune to smallpox; this was the first officially recorded vaccination. The success of the experiment initiated the science of immunology—the prevention of disease by building up resistance to it. Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch firmly established the microbial, or germ, theory of disease. Pasteur proved that microbes are living organisms, that certain kinds of microbes cause disease, and that killing certain microbes stops the spread of specific diseases. German physician Koch invented a method for determining which bacteria cause particular diseases. This method enabled him to identify the germ that causes anthrax—the first germ definitely linked to a particular disease. By the end of the 1800s, researchers had discovered the kinds of bacteria and other microbes responsible for such infectious diseases as cholera, diphtheria, dysentery, gonorrhea, leprosy, malaria, plague pneumonia, tetanus, and tuberculosis. In the 1840s, Americans Crawford Long and William T. G. Morton independently discovered that ether gas could safely be used to put patients to sleep during surgery. With an effective anesthetic, physicians could perform operations never before possible. The scientific study of disease, called pathology, developed during the 1800s. German physician and scientist Rudolf Virchow believed the only way to understand the nature of disease was by close examination of the affected body cells. The development of much improved microscopes in the early 1800s made his studies possible. Before the mid-1800s, hospitals paid little attention to cleanliness and surgeons operated in street clothes. Pasteur’s early work on bacteria convinced an English surgeon named Joseph Lister that germs caused the death of many surgical patients. In 1865, Lister began using carbolic acid, a powerful disinfectant, to sterilize surgical wounds. But this method was later replaced by a more efficient technique known as aseptic surgery. This technique involved keeping germs away from surgical wounds in the first place instead of trying to kill germs already there. Surgeons began to wash thoroughly before an operation and to wear surgical gowns, rubber gloves, and masks. Steam was also introduced for physical sterilization (e.g., surgical instruments). The discovery of x-rays by the German physicist Wilhelm Roentgen in 1895 enabled doctors to “see” inside the human body to diagnose illnesses and injuries. The discovery of radium by the French physicists Pierre and Marie Curie in 1898 provided a powerful weapon against cancer. About 1910, German physician and chemist Paul Ehrlich introduced chemotherapy, which involved searching for chemicals to destroy the microbes responsible for particular diseases. In 1928, the English bacteriologist Sir Alexander Fleming discovered the germ-killing power of a mold called Penicillium. In the early 1940s, a group of English scientists headed by Howard Florey isolated penicillin, a product of this mold. Penicillin thus became the first antibiotic. In 1935, German doctor Gerhard Domagk discovered the ability of sulfa drugs to cure infections in animals, which led to the development of sulfa drugs to treat diseases in humans. From 1940 through 1961, laboratory studies of prothrombin time, electrolytes, blood gases, and creatine phosphokinase (CPK) were introduced. In 1955, the Salk polio vaccine was licensed. During the 1960s and 1970s, the World Health Organization (WHO) conducted a vaccination program that virtually eliminated smallpox from the world. In 1966, the International Smallpox Eradication program was established. Led by the U.S. Public Health Service, worldwide eradication of smallpox was accomplished in 1977. In the 1970s, improvements in cardiac bypass and joint replacement surgery were made, and computed tomography and whole-body scanners were first used. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was introduced in the 1980s. In 1981, Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) and the Human Immunodeficiency Virus III (HIV) were identified. In 1984, the Public Health Service and French scientists identified the Human Immunodeficiency Virus. The National Organ Transplantation Act was signed into law. In 1985, the blood test used to detect HIV was licensed. By June 1990, 139,765 people in the United States had HIV/AIDS, with a 60 percent mortality rate. Also in 1990, the Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resource Emergency (CARE) Act began to provide support for communities to help people with AIDS. In 1990, the Human Genome Project was established. This was a nationally coordinated effort to characterize all human genetic material by determining the complete sequence of the DNA in the human genome. In 2000, human genome sequencing was published. In 1994, National Institutes of Health (NIH)-supported scientists discovered the genes responsible for many cases of hereditary colon cancer, inherited breast cancer, and the most common type of kidney cancer. In 2006, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first vaccine for human papilloma virus (HPV). The vaccine is delivered in three injections over six months and protects against four strains of the virus that can lead to genital warts and cervical cancer. Over the past decade, minimally invasive or robotic surgeries have expanded from gall bladder and gynecologic surgeries to include surgeries on the heart, intestinal organs, and cancer surgeries. The advantages of laparoscopic surgery over traditional “open” surgeries are smaller incisions, shorter recovery time and hospital stay, less scarring, and reduced blood loss. Over the last five years many diagnostic tests have been studied and developed to detect diseases. For example the National Institute on Aging presented a study in 2016 at the Society for Neuroscience. This study used a blood test to determine the amount of a single protein, IRS-1 (Internal Revenue Service-1), which was found to be defective in people with Alzheimer’s disease. The study concluded that individuals with Alzheimer’s disease had increased amounts of the inactive form of IRS-1 and decreased amounts of the active form of IRD-s than adults without the disease. Testing for IRS-1 can help to potentially diagnose the disease before symptoms appear.  

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