European nations in the world were known for It's medical discoveries but America was starting to make its own advances in Medicine. These advances helped solve diseases and epidemics that proved deadly, and In the 19th century, America started become a frontier for medicine in new techniques that are still used today.
One of the first Epidemics to breakout in the U.S. was the Yellow flu, It had killed over 300,000
people per year since being discovered. This disease was caused by mosquitoes transmitting it.In 1937, Max Theiler decided to make one of the first
vaccines for this and it proved to be successful. This vaccine was one of the first created in the United States, and was a breakout because vaccines were more useful than the "coffee and quinine" tactic that doctors had originally used. It was so successful, in fact that around 90% of the vaccine had an immediate response to the
Disease and could patients could now live life without worries.
With many diseases in the world, one of the most common was Diabetes. In 1920 Dr. Frederick Banting and Charles Best created a
pancreatic extract, which is known today as Insulin. There invention was revolutionary as patients without insulin would die within the next
year, but with insulin, they could live much longer with life expectancy just 10-15 years
shorter. This discovery made the U.S a frontier in medicine as it is still used today and throughout the world. With 29.1 million
Americans, In 2012 ,living with diabetes, they can now live knowing they will live a longer and safer life.
I didn't know that insulin and the first malaria vaccine were created in the US. Unfortunately, we might be falling behind. Medical research funding has been dwindling in recent years, making many fear that the US will be behind the curve in new developments in medicine--here's more
ReplyDeleteWow I didn't know budget cuts were that severe, that is a major slow down in future research. Hopefully the government can get the budget back to normal within the next couple of years.
DeleteHere's that link
ReplyDeleteWow that is really interesting. What about medicines and treatment for cancer, who is researching this and who is funding the research?
ReplyDeleteOrganization like the National Cancer Institute is researching and the funding is coming from federal institutes and other organizations. You can find other info about cancer research and funding on this website http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/NCI/research-funding
DeleteI love this topic, and it also reminds me of the pandemic Spanish flu, which occurred after the World War One. I think it was the scientists from US, who got the first flu vaccine, and the vaccine literally saved the whole world because by that point the flu had already killed millions of people.
ReplyDeleteHere is a link to the spanish flu(http://www.foodconsumer.org/newsite/Non-food/Drug/who_invented_the_flu_vaccine_041020091008.html)
Yes that is also a major Vaccine that saved millions of people. Also another vaccine that fixed an epidemic was for Polio. Here is the link for this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polio_vaccine
DeleteI agree that America has come very far in terms of medicine. At the same time, you must address the fact we have lacked with the idea of preparation in case of a major virus outbreak. Recent cases of Ebola in the US show these problems
ReplyDeleteThis is true, America has come a long way in terms of medicine in the last 300 years. Do you think that we are close to finding the cure to diseases like Alzheimer.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your argument that America is advancing in medicine, but you should expand on the differences and similarities of the two diseases and the different variations of diabetes.
ReplyDelete