The onset of the holidays brings with it reflection on the past. Giving thanks for the blessings of the year prior, contemplation of the passing of another year and hope for possibilities in the year to come. I am not immune.
Given the national debate on health care reform, my thoughts have been focused on this issue. Not so much the issue of whether there should or should not be a public option or health insurance reform to prohibit pre-existing conditions. Rather, how much the science of medicine has evolved.
This is also a time for the multitude of lists published on the most influential people of the year, best inventions, best songs, movies, etcetera. So here is my list.
There have been remarkable discoveries and innovations in the last century or so. So much so that we often forget and take for granted some fundamentals. But here are my 5 best people and their ideas that have transformed modern medicine and its development.
5. Louis Pasteur and his work on germ theory. This microbiologist and chemist is probably best known for demonstrating how microbes caused fermentation. His work in proving germ theory (as opposed to spontaneous generation) led to advances in food science preventing spoilage and illness. If you’ve ever safely drank pasteurized milk (yes, eponymous), wine or beer or eaten aged cheese you have benefited by his work. Germ theory has also opened our collective eyes to this microscopic world with attendant dangers in the field of health care. From his theory we have developed aseptic techniques. All who have ever had surgery, had an IV inserted or given blood owe Mr. Pasteur a debt of gratitude.
4. Jonas Salk and the vaccine. Polio and smallpox are virtually eradicated in the U.S. Death by measles, mumps and rubella are relatively rare. We can be proactive against influenza. All because of Salk’s work with vaccines.
3. Sir Alexander Fleming and penicillin. This Scottish pharmacologist ushered in the era of antibiotics. It seems unfathomable in today’s world of antibiotics so ubiquitious that they are fed to feed animals by the ton but it was not that long ago that pneumonia, cellulitis, sinusitis and the like killed multitudes.
2. Thomas Jefferson and the patent system. While patents in some shape or form were in existence prior to our third president, Jefferson is credited with founding the U.S. patent system. (I’m aware this is a U.S. centric viewpoint and loved this commentary http://bit.ly/7nJlSn but I digress.) Our current health care system is largely dependent on drugs and devices. New drugs can sometimes cure and often times ameliorate diseases preventing invasive surgery. New medical devices allow life saving surgeries to be possible and to be done more safely. Most of these developments comes from innovations by companies in private industry. While there is plenty of room to debate whether companies are gaming the system or whether reform in some form should be instituted, the basic mechanism of protecting inventions for a limited time to allow return on investment at it’s basic level is a good one.
1. Sir John Harington and the modern flush toilet. The credit for the toilet is often given to Thomas Crapper. While he made improvements, along with Alexander Cumming and Joseph Bramah, Harington had the initial design. Toilets are so mundane and banal and the idea of human waste management is so distasteful that few of us ever give this modern contraption a second thought. But nearly 2 million people in the U.S. don’t have access to an indoor toilet. Over two-thirds of the world’s population is without sanitation and nearly 1.8 million child deaths each year are related to sanitation and clean water. Discussions of human waste are not comfortable in our society- we linguistically decontaminate the topic. Yet providing access to toilets and keeping feces out of potable water is the single biggest health threat in the world. If you’ve never had cholera, you can thank Sir Harington.
