Getting Better: 200 Years of Medicine

Surgery

• Surgery used to be extremely brutal. There were no anesthetics and no way to fight infections people would get from surgery. Surgery was extremely fatal.
• The first discovery of ether anesthesia was in the 1840s, by doctor and in 1846, the first surgery using ether anesthesia. It was extremely successful.
• This allowed surgeons to work deeper in the body without causing the patient pain.
• Infection was a major issue in surgery
• A Hungarian physician discovered that keeping the hands and arms clean helped prevent infection
• Later it was discovered that carbolic acid killed infectous microorganisms.
• Nowadays, having pre- and post-operation lists helps prevent death.

Cancer

• In the 1930s, cancer was an automatic death sentence.
• There was absolutely no cure for Leukemia
• A Boston doctor first thought to treat Leukemia with chemicals, specifically antifolic acid
• The antifolates worked, but the patients all relapsed later
• The Jimmy Foundation was created, and money pored to to fund new research and pay for new drugs, like methotrexate.
• Treatments were still deadly
• In Tennessee, a group of doctors found a way to use different combinations of chemotheraphy to cure leukemia. By the next decade, the survival rate went up to 50%
• It was discovered that there were different types of leukemia, which means different types of treatment.
• People are still trying to figure out how to cure specific muatation.
• A type of drug that kills only leukemia cells, but keep s healthy cells alive.

HIV/AIDS

• In the 1980s, a pattern of strange deaths occurred in America, where gay men would get pneumonia or other viruses and die because their bodies wouldn't fight it. This became known as Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome, or AIDS.
• Medical experts originally had no clue where the disease came from or how it was acquired, so for a long time there was no treatment.
• There was a lot of controversy with the disease. The LGBTQIA+ community was stigmatized and were told they deserved what they were getting.
• It soon became known that AIDS was a product of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus, HIV, where the immune system is attacked and cannot fight back. HIV is sexually transmitted, and anybody can get it, not just gay men.
• In the mid 1990s, a treatment known as ART was created, and people with HIV were able to live longer.
• There is also a drug called AZT, which is a pill, that also fights HIV with no major side affects.
• In the 90s, the LGBTQIA+ and HIV community fought for affordable healthcare and treatment, which helped push the need for more treatment.
• There is no cure for HIV/AIDS, but now, people with HIV can now live a long life, just like anybody without the virus.

People

• William Wharton: Had the idea to use ether as an anesthetic
• Dr. Jacob Bigelow and Dr. John Collins Warren: First surgeons to use ether anesthitic for an operation
• Dr. Semmelweis: First person to help prevent infection in surgery
• Joseph Lister: Discovered that carbolic acid could prevent infection in surgery
• Sidney Farber: First person who thought to kill Leukemia with chemicals