Historical+Development

=Western Medical Technology=

I. Introductions and Definitions

What is Western Medical Technology? It is easier if we look at the components one by one:

a. Define Medicine:
 * “Medicine** is the art and science of healing. It encompasses a range of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness.**”** - Quoted from [|Wikipedia]

b. Define Technology:
 * “Technology** deals with human as well as other animal species' usage and knowledge of tools and crafts, and how it affects a species' ability to control and adapt to its natural environment. The word //technology// comes from the Greek //technología// (//τεχνολογία//) — //téchnē// (//τέχνη//), 'craft' and //-logía// (//-λογία//), the study of something, or the branch of knowledge of a discipline. A strict definition is elusive; //technology// can be material objects of use to humanity, such as machines, but can also encompass broader themes, including systems, methods of organization, and techniques. The term can either be applied generally or to specific areas: examples include "construction technology", "medical technology", or "state-of-the-art technology". .**”** - Quoted from [|Wikipedia]

c. Define Western:
 * “Western culture** (sometimes equated with **Western civilization** or European civilization) refers to cultures of European origin. However, the idea that all European countries (especially the Orthodox civilization) belong to the Western culture is refused by the majority of Western scholars of social sciences.**” -** Quoted from [|Wikipedia]

Now looking at the individual meanings, we can define Western Medical Technology as knowledge of using tools and crafts for the purpose of preventing and treating illness that are developed by people with a European descent.

As science and technology developed, early/traditional practices of medicine began to change. Such changes can be divided into three periods, namely : Pre-Industrial Period, Industrial Period and Post-Industrial Period.


 * MEDICAL TECHNOLOGY IN TIMELINE FORM**

Antiquity

 * c. 2600s BC - [|Imhotep] wrote texts on [|ancient Egyptian medicine] describing diagnosis and treatment of 200 diseases in 3rd dynasty Egypt.
 * c. 2596 BC¹ - The legendary date of composition of //[|Huangdi Neijing]// (//Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine//), which lays poo framework for the basic theories of [|traditional Chinese medicine]
 * c. 1500 BC¹ - [|Saffron] used as a medicine on the Aegean island of Thera in ancient Greece
 * c. 500 BC - [|Sushruta] wrote Sushruta Samhita describing over 120 [|surgical instruments], 300 surgical procedures, classified human [|surgery] in 8 categories and described [|cosmetic surgery] in the[|Ayurvedic] text //[|Sushruta Samhita]//
 * c. 500 BC - [|Bian Que] becomes the earliest physician known to use [|acupuncture] and pulse diagnosis.
 * 420 BC - [|Hippocrates of Cos] maintains that diseases have natural causes and puts forth the [|Hippocratic Oath], marking the birth of medicine in the west.
 * 300 BC - [|Charaka] writes the [|Ayurvedic] text //[|Charaka Samhita]// which uses a rational approach to the causes and cure of disease and uses objective methods of [|clinical] examination.
 * 280 BC - [|Herophilus] studies the [|nervous system] and distinguishes between sensory nerves and motor nerves
 * 250 BC - [|Erasistratus] studies the [|brain] and distinguishes between the [|cerebrum] and [|cerebellum]
 * 50-70 - [|Pedanius Dioscorides] writes //De Materia Medica// - a precursor of modern pharmacopeias that was in use for almost 1600 years
 * 180 - [|Galen] studies the connection between [|paralysis] and severance of the [|spinal cord]
 * 220 - [|Zhang Zhongjing] publishes [|Shang Han Lun] (On Cold Disease Damage), the oldest complete medical textbook in the world, focusing on diagnosis, treatment and prognosis.
 * 215-282 - Life of [|Huangfu Mi], who wrote the [|Zhenjiu Jiayijing] (The ABC Compendium of Acupuncture), the first textbook focusing solely on acupuncture.

[[|edit]] Middle Ages

 * 750 - [|Madhav] writes the Ayurvedic text Nidana where he lists diseases along with their causes, symptoms, and complications.
 * c. 800-873 - [|Al-Kindi] (Alkindus) introduces [|quantification] into medicine with his //[|De Gradibus]//
 * c. 830-870 - [|Hunayn ibn Ishaq] translates Galen's works into Arabic
 * c. 838-870 - [|Ali ibn Sahl Rabban al-Tabari], a pioneer of pediatrics and the field of child development, writes the first [|encyclopedia] of medicine.[|[1]]
 * c. 865-925 - [|Rhazes] pioneers [|pediatrics],[|[2]] and makes the first clear distinction between [|smallpox] and [|measles] in his //al-Hawi//. He also writes the //Doubts about Galen//, where he refutes Galen's theory of [|humorism] using an [|experiment].
 * 1000 - [|Abulcasis] establishes [|surgery] as a profession of in his //Kitab [|al-Tasrif]//, which remains a standard textbook in Muslim and European [|universities] until the 16th century. The book first introduced the [|plaster],[|[3]] [|inhalant] [|anesthesia], and many [|surgical instruments], including the first instruments unique to women,[|[4]] as well as the surgical uses of [|catgut] and [|forceps], the [|ligature], [|surgical needle],[|scalpel], [|curette], [|retractor], surgical [|spoon], [|sound], surgical [|hook], surgical [|rod], [|specula],[|[5]] and [|bone] [|saw].[|[6]]
 * 1021 - [|Alhazen] completes his //[|Book of Optics]//, which made important advances in [|ophthalmology] and [|eye surgery], as it correctly explained the process of [|visual perception] for the first time.[|[4]]
 * c. 1030 - [|Avicenna] writes //[|The Book of Healing]// and //[|The Canon of Medicine]//, in which he establishes [|experimental medicine] and [|evidence-based medicine]. The //Canon// remains a standard textbook in Muslim and European [|universities] until the 18th century. The book's contributions to medicine includes the introduction of [|clinical trials], systematic [|experimentation] and [|quantification] in medicine and[|physiology],[|[7]] the discovery of [|contagious diseases], the distinction of [|mediastinitis] from [|pleurisy], the contagious nature of [|phthisis], the distribution of [|diseases] by [|water] and [|soil], and the first careful descriptions of [|skin] troubles, [|sexually transmitted diseases], [|perversions], and [|nervous ailments],[|[8]] as well the use of [|ice] to treat [|fevers], and the separation of [|medicine] from [|pharmacology], which was important to the development of the [|pharmaceutical sciences].[|[4]]
 * 1100-1161 - [|Avenzoar] invents the surgical procedure of [|tracheotomy] in [|al-Andalus].[|[9]] He is also the first physician known to have carried out human [|dissections] and postmortem [|autopsy], and proves that the [|skin disease] [|scabies] is caused by a [|parasite], which contradicted the erroneous theory of [|humorism].[|[10]] He was also the first to provide a real scientific [|etiology] for the [|inflammatory diseases]of the [|ear], and the first to clearly discuss the causes of [|stridor].[|[11]] Modern [|anesthesia] was also developed in [|al-Andalus] by the Muslim [|anesthesiologists] Ibn Zuhr and [|Abulcasis]. They were the first to utilize oral as well as [|inhalant anesthetics], and they performed hundreds of surgeries under [|inhalant] anesthesia with the use of [|narcotic]-soaked [|sponges] which were placed over the face.[|[12]]
 * 1242 - [|Ibn an-Nafis] suggests that the right and left [|ventricles] of the [|heart] are separate and discovers the [|pulmonary circulation] (the cycle involving the [|ventricles] of the [|heart] and the [|lungs]) and [|coronary circulation],[|[13]] for which he is considered the pioneer of [|circulation theory][|[14]] and one of the greatest [|physiologists].[|[15]] He emphasized the rigours of verification by [|measurement], [|observation] and[|experiment], and was an early proponent of [|experimental medicine], postmortem [|autopsy], and human [|dissection].[|[16]] He also discredited many other erroneous [|Avicennian] and [|Galenic] doctrines on the[|four humours], [|pulse] [|bones], [|muscles], [|intestines], [|sensory organs], [|bilious] [|canals], [|esophagus], [|stomach], and the [|anatomy] of other parts of the [|human body].[|[17]] Ibn al-Nafis also drew [|diagrams] to illustrate different body parts in his new physiological system.[|[18]]
 * c. 1248 - [|Ibn al-Baitar] wrote on [|botany] and [|pharmacy], studied animal anatomy and medicine, and was a pioneer of [|veterinary medicine].
 * 1249 - [|Roger Bacon] writes about [|convex lens] [|spectacles] for treating [|long-sightedness]
 * 1300s - When the [|Black Death] [|bubonic plague] reached [|al-Andalus], [|Ibn Khatima] hypothesized that infectious diseases are caused by [|microorganisms] which enter the human body.[|[19]]
 * 1313-1374 - [|Ibn Khatima] wrote a treatise called //On the Plague//, in which he establishes the existence of contagion through "experience, investigation, the evidence of the senses and trustworthy reports." He also discovers that "transmission is affected through garments, vessels and earrings."[|[19]]
 * 1403 - [|concave lens] spectacles to treat [|myopia]
 * early 16th century: [|Paracelsus], an [|alchemist] by trade, rejects [|occultism] and pioneers the use of chemicals and minerals in medicine

[[|edit]] 1500 - 1800

 * 1543 - [|Andreas Vesalius] publishes De Fabrica Corporis Humani which corrects Greek medical errors and revolutionizes European medicine
 * 1546 - [|Girolamo Fracastoro] proposes that epidemic diseases are caused by transferable seedlike entities
 * 1553 - Spanish physician [|Miguel Serveto] describes the circulation of blood through the [|lungs]. He is accused of heresy (for his theological ideas, not for his medical ideas) by Catholics and Protestants alike; burned at the stake for heresy the same year at age 44
 * 1556 - [|Amato Lusitano] describes venous valves in the Ázigos vein
 * 1559 - [|Realdo Colombo] describes the circulation of blood through the lungs in detail
 * 1563 - [|Garcia de Orta] founds [|tropical medicine] with his treatise on Indian diseases and treatments
 * 1596 - [|Li Shizhen] publishes Běncǎo Gāngmù or [|Compendium of Materia Medica], containing 1,892 distinct herbs and other materia medica. There are some 11,096 side prescriptions to treat common illness.
 * 1603 - [|Girolamo Fabrici] studies leg [|veins] and notices that they have [|valves] which allow blood to flow only toward the heart
 * 1628 - [|William Harvey] explains that the [|vein]-[|artery] system is a continuous loop and that the heart works like a pump to push blood in a one-way circuit through the body, in //[|Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis in Animalibus]//
 * 1701 - [|Giacomo Pylarini] gives the first [|smallpox] [|innoculations] in Europe. They were widely practised in the east before then.
 * 1736 - [|Claudius Aymand] performs the first successful [|appendectomy]
 * 1747 - [|James Lind] discovers that [|citrus] [|fruits] prevent [|scurvy]
 * 1785 - [|William Withering] publishes //"An Account of the Foxglove"// the first systematic description of [|digitalis] in treating [|dropsy]
 * 1790s - [|Samuel Hahnemann] rages against the prevalent practice of [|bloodletting] as a universal cure and founds [|homeopathy]
 * 1796 - [|Edward Jenner] develops a smallpox [|vaccination] method

[[|edit]] 1800 - Present

 * 1800 - [|Humphry Davy] announces the [|anaesthetic] properties of [|nitrous oxide]
 * 1816 - [|Rene Laennec] invents the [|stethoscope]
 * 1818 - British obstetrician [|James Blundell] performs the first successful human blood [|transfusion].
 * 1842 - [|Crawford Long] performs the first surgical operation using anaesthesia with [|ether]
 * 1847 - [|Ignaz Semmelweis] discovers how to prevent [|puerperal fever], childbed fever, a blood infection passed to women during childbirth by their doctors. The fever killed one-third of mothers in some hospitals of the time.
 * 1849 - [|Elizabeth Blackwell] is the first woman to gain a medical degree
 * 1855 - first rubber [|condom][|[20]]
 * 1867 - [|Lister] publishes //[|Antiseptic Principle of the Practice of Surgery]//, based partly on Pasteur's work.
 * 1870 - [|Louis Pasteur] and [|Robert Koch] establish the [|germ theory of disease]
 * 1879 - first vaccine for [|cholera]
 * 1881 - Louis Pasteur develops an [|anthrax] vaccine
 * 1882 - Louis Pasteur develops a [|rabies] vaccine
 * 1890 - [|Emil von Behring] discovers [|antitoxins] and uses them to develop [|tetanus] and [|diphtheria] vaccines
 * 1895 - [|Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen] discovers medical use of [|X-rays] in [|medical imaging]
 * 1901 - [|Karl Landsteiner] discovers the existence of different human [|blood types]
 * 1901 - [|Alois Alzheimer] identifies the first case of what becomes known as [|Alzheimer's disease]
 * 1906 - [|Frederick Hopkins] suggests the existence of [|vitamins] and suggests that a lack of vitamins causes [|scurvy] and [|rickets]
 * 1907 - [|Paul Ehrlich] develops a chemotherapeutic cure for [|sleeping sickness]
 * 1908 - [|Victor Horsley] and R. Clarke invents the [|stereotactic method]
 * 1909 - First [|Intrauterine device] described by Richard Richter.[|[21]]
 * 1917 - [|Julius Wagner-Jauregg] discovers the malarial fever [|shock therapy] for [|general paresis of the insane]
 * 1921 - [|Edward Mellanby] discovers [|vitamin D] and shows that its absence causes [|rickets]
 * 1921 - [|Frederick Banting] and Charles Best discover [|insulin] - important for the treatment of diabetes
 * 1923 - First vaccine for [|Diphtheria]
 * 1926 - First vaccine for [|Pertussis]
 * 1927 - First vaccine for [|Tuberculosis]
 * 1927 - First vaccine for [|Tetanus]
 * 1928 - [|Alexander Fleming] discovers [|penicillin]
 * 1929 - [|Hans Berger] discovers human [|electroencephalography]
 * 1932 - [|Gerhard Domagk] develops a chemotherapeutic cure for [|streptococcus]
 * 1933 - [|Manfred Sakel] discovers [|insulin shock therapy]
 * 1935 - [|Ladislas J. Meduna] discovers [|metrazol] [|shock therapy]
 * 1935 - First vaccine for [|Yellow Fever]
 * 1936 - [|Egas Moniz] discovers prefrontal [|lobotomy] for treating mental diseases
 * 1938 - [|Ugo Cerletti] and [|Lucio Bini] discover [|electroconvulsive therapy]
 * 1943 - [|Willem Kolff] build the first [|dialysis machine]
 * 1949 - First implant of [|intraocular lens], by [|Sir Harold Ridley]
 * 1952 - [|Jonas Salk] develops the first [|polio] vaccine
 * 1957 - [|William Grey Walter] invents the brain [|EEG topography] (toposcope)
 * 1960 - Invention of Cardiopulmonary resuscitation ([|CPR])
 * 1960 - First [|combined oral contraceptive] approved by the FDA[|[21]]
 * 1962 - First Oral [|Polio Vaccine]
 * 1964 - First vaccine for [|Measles]
 * 1965 - [|Frank Pantridge] installs the first portable [|defibrillator]
 * 1965 - First commercial [|ultrasound]
 * 1967 - First vaccine for [|Mumps]
 * 1967 - [|Christiaan Barnard] performs first human heart transplant
 * 1970 - First vaccine for [|Rubella]
 * 1971 - Sir [|Godfrey Hounsfield] invents the first commercial [|CT scanner]
 * 1976 - First commercial [|PET scanner]
 * 1978 - Last fatal case of [|smallpox][|[22]]
 * 1980 - [|Raymond Damadian] builds first commercial [|MRI scanner]
 * 1981 - First [|vaccine for Hepatitis B]
 * 1987 - [|Ben Carson], leading a 70-member medical team in Germany, was the first to separate occipital craniopagus twins.
 * 1992 - First [|vaccine for Hepatitis A] available[|[23]]
 * 2003 - [|Carlo Urbani], of Doctors without Borders alerted the [|World Health Organization] to the threat of the [|SARS] virus, triggering the most effective response to an epidemic in history. Urbani succumbs to the disease himself in less than a month.
 * 2005 - Jean-Michel Dubernard performs the first partial [|face transplant]
 * 2006 - First [|HPV vaccine] approved
 * 2006 - Second [|rotavirus vaccine] approved (first was withdrawn)
 * 2008 - Laurent Lantieri performs the first full [|face transplant]