The History of Medicine

This week we move into the mid 1800s, starting in England, where industrialization is in full swing. Along with it comes a bunch of pretty terrible worker conditions, which eventually become so bad it warrants government response. Let's talk about just how bad it can get. Check out our website! E-mail me! Say hi on Facebook! Transcripts and Sources here!

This week we discuss the origins of variolation, or deliberately infecting folks with smallpox to prevent more dangerous smallpox. Variolation then leads eventually to vaccination, and both become fairly wide spread by the mid 1800s, which is to be vital in the advancement of public health. Check out our website! E-mail me! Say hi on Facebook! Transcripts and Sources here!

This week, we revisit the state of public health. We have some new, really detailed plans from Johann Frank, and some new detailed plans established by the French government, that almost stick. We're getting closer to some actual health policy though! Check out our website! E-mail me! Say hi on Facebook! Transcripts and Sources here!

This week, we talk about institutional improvements in the 1750s-1830s, like hospitals and clinics, that follow some of the trends of the time, like more people and more urbanization. These expansions will also establish a pattern for social change in healthcare, that is to apply later in this season as well. Check out our website! E-mail me! Say hi on Facebook!

This week, we reach the age of enlightenment, from about 1750 to 1830. And this week, we begin by saving a bunch of babies, with improvements in institutions for poor children, some new regulations, and a bit of new medical knowledge. Check out our website! E-mail me! Say hi on Facebook!

This week, we finish up the Renaissance era with talk of how local administration of public health improved. We'll walk through some new ways to handle sewage, water supplies, and hospitals were handled in the era, and then sum things up. Check out our website! E-mail me! Say hi on Facebook!

This week we talk through some new ideas in public health that rise in the 1500s-1700s. People propose collecting new statistics, and governments generally taking much more of an active role in maintaining public health. Check out our website! E-mail me! Say hi on Facebook!

This week, we go over the advancements in understanding the causes of disease. Miasma theory continues to thrive, but also new ideas about tiny seeds causing disease spring up. We get very close to our modern understanding of germs, but fall just a bit short.  Check out our website! E-mail me! Say hi on Facebook!

This week, we'll talk about syphilis, which will illustrate an early example of a sexually transmitted disease, as well as how social factors like stigmas and geopolitics can affect public health.  Check out our website! E-mail me! Say hi on Facebook!

This week, we progress to the age of discovery, and learn about Bernardino Ramazzini, known as the father of occupational therapy. He studied over 50 types of jobs, and the health effects those jobs can have, and many of his findings are still useful to this day.  Check out our website! E-mail me! Say hi on Facebook!

Let's finish up with the Middle Ages this week. We'll talk about two illnesses that would shape public health in this time period, leprosy and the bubonic plague. Between them, a practice that we call quarantine will be born. Simultaneously, hospitals will spread across the land, bringing our time in the Middle Ages to a close.  Check out our website! E-mail me! Say hi on Facebook!

This week, we're in the Middle Ages, also known as the medieval era. We'll follow the state of public health knowledge from where it was under the Romans to the scattered city states that followed. Some knowledge was lost, but eventually many things are rediscovered, and some innovations were made, like some of the early regulations on food.  Check out our website! E-mail me! Say hi on F...

Hello everyone, we're back, for season 3, about public health. As per usual, to start, we'll go over what was figured out in the earliest times, which I think you'll also find is a surprisingly good amount. We'll touch too a little on the work of the Ancient Greeks and Romans, and then call it a day there.  Check out our website! E-mail me! Say hi on Facebook!

This week, we talk about the future of surgery. Virtual reality, augmented reality, 3-D printed organs, the future is exciting, and I look forward to seeing the field of surgery continue to develop. Check out our website! E-mail me! Say hi on Facebook! Transcripts and Sources here!

For our last historical topic of the season, we'll look at robotic surgery. It starts in the late 1980s, with new robots that could perform very specific tasks, like biopsies. The story continues to this very day, with modern surgeon-controlled surgery robots, that allow for safer and better surgeries than ever. Check out our website! E-mail me! Say hi on Facebook! Transcripts and Sources her...

This week, we'll continue our talk of prosthetics, but this time focused on joints. As it turns out, joint replacements have been around for a long time, thanks to some early pioneers like Themistocles Gluck, and Jules Pean. After them, you have a series of scientists and doctors trying out new materials, getting new pros and cons each time, but steadily improving, which continues to this ver...

This week, part 1 of our talk of prosthetics. We talk about the ancient through modern history of limb prostheses, which starts out with peg legs, and evolves into incredibly complex operations and surgeries that can restore much of a patient's original limb functions. Check out our website! E-mail me! Say hi on Facebook! Transcripts and Sources here!

This week, just a little bit after Valentine's day, we learn to deal with rejection... organ transplant rejection, that is. We walk through the earliest experiments with internal organ transplant, through the pioneering work in the 50s with kidney transplants, and finally to the modern day. Check out our website! E-mail me! Say hi on Facebook! Transcripts and Sources here!

This week, we finish off our history of cardiac surgery. We invent two new procedures to deal with blockages in coronary arteries: one goes through the blockages, and the other goes around. Then, some brilliant folks invent pacemakers, and then implantable defibrillators. Check out our website! E-mail me! Say hi on Facebook! Transcripts and Sources here!

This week, we get to cardiac surgery. It starts with operations on the pericardium, lots of people getting stabbed in the chest, and for this week, ends with inducing hypothermia and using people as heart-lung machines. Website: http://thehistoryofmedicine.buzzsprout.com/ E-mail: thehistoryofmedicinepodcast@gmail.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheHistoryOfMedicine/ Transcripts and Sources...

This week, we talk about lung surgery. it starts with Carlo Fornanini adding gas into the chest cavity, then doctors removing pus from the chest, even removing ribs to do it. Then, Willliam Macewen figures out intubation, and other folks bring us modern mechanical ventilators. Website: http://thehistoryofmedicine.buzzsprout.com/ E-mail: thehistoryofmedicinepodcast@gmail.com Facebook: https://www.f...

We finally get around to neurosurgery this week. We have a whole lot of cameos, but also some new faces. Slowly but surely, doctors put together a rudimentary map of the brain and its function, and then we move to better and better actual operations. In modern times,we've got great imaging and diagnostic tools, and even interfaces with the brain directly. Website: http://thehistoryofmedicine....

Let's look at our inner most selves... literally, with endoscopy. This week, Phillip Bozzini makes the light conductor, and others build upon his work, eventually yielding endoscopes. From there, a great many doctors, many gynecologists, create laparoscopy, using endoscopes with a surgical incision to investigate the inside of the body, and from there, we get modern laparoscopic surgery. Webs...

I goofed up last time, we're actually going to talk about abdominal surgery this week. Abdominal surgery pretty much stems from two old operations. The first, colostomies, was proposed by Alex Littre, and then actually done by Claude Duret. The second, ovariotomies, or the removal of ovarian cysts, was pushed forward by Ephraim McDowell, despite much resistance. Colostomy Image Website: http:...

Let's finish up the story of plastic surgery this week. We left off in World War I, where Harold Gillies and William Lane will revolutionize facial restoration, gathering a team of specialists. Then, in World War II, Archibald McIndoe, one of Gillies' understudies, helps thousands of wounded soldiers with new treatments for burns, both surgical and psychological. Website: http://thehisto...