Health: Significant breakthroughs in medical history

Picture for representational purposesCanadian physician Frederick Banting and medical student Charles H Best are credited with the first medical success of insulins use in the treatment of diabetesBanting and Best developed insulin for human treatment with the help of Canadian chemist James B Collip and Scottish physiologist JJR MacleodThey were able to make a important breakthrough when 14yearold Leonard Thompson a boy suffering from type 1 diabetes who was close to death bounced backed to life after getting injected with insulin Banting and Macleod were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1923Other groundbreaking milestones in medicineThe discovery of anaesthesiaAnaesthesia Pic for representational purposesWilliam Thomas Green Morton PicYouTubeAmerican dentist William Thomas Green Morton performed a painless tooth extraction after administering ether to a patient on September 30 of the same year This inspired surgeon Henry Jacob Bigelow who read a favourable news report of this account to invite him for the nowfamous demonstration at the operating theater of the Massachusetts General Hospital or MGHAn illustration of the historic event PicYouTubeDr John Collins Warren painlessly removed a tumor from the neck of a Mr Edward Gilbert Abbott during the demonstration The hospitals operation theatre was later renamed the Ether Dome after this eventMorton used a special glass inhaler to administer the ether before the surgery The discovery made it possible for patients to obtain the benefits of surgical treatment without the pain associated with an operationThe term anesthesia was suggested by physician and writer Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr in a letter to Morton He also urged him to call the procedure an anaestheticMorton had earlier used ether while performing a tooth extraction PicYouTubeThe first use of ether as an anesthetic is commemorated in the Ether Monument in the Boston Public Garden in Boston Massachusetts and William Thomas Green Mortons life and work were later to become the subject of the 1944 film The Great MomentThe smallpox virus was eradicted on this day December 9 in 1979 It marks the first and to date only human disease to be driven to extinction3D representation of the smallpox virusSmallpox vaccineEnglish physician and scientist Edward Jenner introduced the smallpox vaccine the first successful vaccine to be developed in 1798 He followed up his observation that milkmaids who had previously caught cowpox did not later catch smallpox by showing that inoculated cowpox protected against inoculated smallpoxEdward JennerSmallpox was eradicated by a massive international search for outbreaks backed up with a vaccination program starting in 1967 It was organised and coordinated by a World Health Organisation WHO unit set up and headed by Donald Henderson The last case in the Americas occurred in 1971 Brazil southeast Asia Indonesia in 1972 and on the Indian subcontinent in 1975 Bangladesh After two years of intensive searches what proved to be the last endemic case anywhere in the world occurred in Somalia in October 1977 A Global Commission for the Certification of Smallpox Eradication chaired by Frank Fenner examined the evidence from and visited where necessary all countries where smallpox had been endemic In December 1979 they concluded that smallpox had been eradicated a conclusion endorsed by the WHO General Assembly in May 1980HIV cured in baby for first timeIn a breakthrough a twoyearold baby girl in the US born with HIV has been functionally cured for the first time scientists have saidUS Researchers said they believe early intervention in this case within 30 hours of birth with three antiviral drugs was key to the outcomeA functional cure is when the presence of the virus is so small lifelong treatment is not necessary and standard clinical tests cannot detect the virus in the bloodInVitro Fertilization IVFOne of the biggest breakthroughs in treating infertility came in 1978 when the first test tube baby was born with the process of InVitro Fertilization IVFRepresentational pictureThe biggest drawback of lVF was encountered in patients with low sperm counts This was overcome in 1992 with the introduction of the new technique called Intra Cytoplasmic Sperm Injection ICSI Bloom IVF group introduced ICSI in 1996 and started an advanced centre at the Lilavati Hospital Bandra in 1998 Since then the group has made hundreds of childless couples happy by gifting them a priceless babyThe Xray machineThe Xray machine was named the most important scientific invention in a poll marking the centenary of the Science Museum in London Discovered in 1895 by German physicist Wilhelm Roumlntgen it revolutionised how doctors detected disease and injuryRepresentational pictureRoumlntgen discovered its medical use when he made a picture of his wifes hand on a photographic plate formed due to Xrays The photograph of his wifes hand was the first photograph of a human body part using Xrays Katie Maggs associate curator of medicine at the Science Museum attributed the Xray machines popularity to the wide impact it has on peoples everyday life from the very first steps of a medical diagnosis to security control at airports PenicillinSir Alexander Fleming a Scottish biologist pharmacologist and botanist discovered the antibiotic substance penicillin from the mould Penicillium notatum in 1928 for which he shared the Nobel Prize in medicine in 1945 with Howard Florey and Ernst Boris Chain Fleming was the first to suggest that the Penicillium mould must secrete an antibacterial substance and the first to concentrate the active substance which he named penicillin but he was not the first to use its properties in medicine Others involved in the mass production of penicillin include Ernst Chain Howard Florey and Norman HeatleyRepresentational picturePenicillin antibiotics were among the first drugs to be effective against many previously serious diseases such as bacterial infections caused by staphylococci and streptococci Penicillins are still widely used today though misuse has now made many types of bacteria resistant All penicillins are betalactam antibiotics and are used in the treatment of bacterial infections caused by susceptible usually Grampositive organismsSeveral enhanced penicillin families also exist effective against additional bacteria these include the antistaphylococcal penicillins aminopenicillins and the morepowerful antipseudomonal penicillins