A picture of health
AS COVID JABS CONTINUE TO ROLL OUT, MARION McMULLEN LOOKS AT A NEW BOOK HIGHLIGHTING MILESTONES IN MEDICINE
ROCK ‘n’ roll king Elvis Presley was rolling up his sleeve for a polio vaccination in New York in 1956 just three years after American virologist Jonas Salk announced he had found a vaccine against polio in 1953.
Before the vaccination, polio used to kill or paralyse half a million people a year across the world. Salk said: “I have had dreams and I have had nightmares but I conquered my nightmares because of my dreams.”
He had earlier worked with Thomas Francis to develop the first flu vaccine, used to immunise US troops during the Second World War. The flu vaccine followed fears of the 1918 Great Influenza pandemic which led to an estimated 50 million people dying worldwide, infecting around a third of the global population.
Like Covid-19, it was a virus that has now been identified as a deadly strain of the H1N1 influenza virus. Those worst effected by the killer flu suffered acute pain, rib-cracking coughing fits and profuse bleeding from their skin, eyes and ears with lung inflammation starving the blood of oxygen and turning skin blue.
New publication The Medicine Book shows that the search for good health has been around since the earliest days of mankind.
Prehistoric history indicates humans were practising medicine more than 40,000 years ago.
Serious disease was seen as a punishment of the gods in ancient Egypt, while Ayurvedic medicine was developed in India around 800BC. An ancient Ayurvedic proverb states: “When diet is wrong, medicine is of no use, when diet is correct, medicine is of no need.”
Chinese medicine included some remedies that were common to other ancient civilisations such as herbs, diets and massage, but it also developed its own practices and placed great emphasis on the pulse for diagnosis and acupuncture.
Medicine flourished in ancient Greece with physician Hippocrates of Cos advising: “Cure sometimes, treat often, comfort always.”
Roman physician Claudius Galen also became hugely respected for his work in healing the sick and his works were still being consulted until well into the 16th century. Galen experienced first hand the internal human anatomy through treating the wounded and examining the dead while he worked as a physician at a gladiatorial school.
Pandemics have been public health enemy number one throughout history and British diary writer Samuel Pepys wrote of the Great Plague, that struck in 1665, saying “bodies were left in empty houses, and there was no-one to give them Christian burial”.
The Antonine Plague killed 25% of the Roman Empire’s population – about 2,000 people a day – while the Black Death in the 14th century killed up to 200 million people in Asia, Europe and North Africa and wiped out entire communities.
Nobel-winning writer Albert Camus wrote: “There have been as many plagues as wars in history, yet always plagues and wars take people equally by surprise.”
Breakthroughs and discoveries have shaped our modern-day understanding of medicine and have helped us to protect and promote good health.
Advances in vaccinations, transplants, surgery, pharmaceutical and hygiene have all played there part in improving health.
American scientist Carl Sagan pointed out: “Advances in medicine and agriculture have saved vastly more lives than have often been lost in all the wars of history.”
Even the humble aspirin has had a part to play over the centuries. It is one of the most widely used drugs in the world and its active ingredient is a compound derived from the willow tree.
Egyptian medical papyri from around 1600BC refer to willow as having an anti-inflammatory effect and Hippocrates proscribed willow leaf tea for fever and pain, particularly for women in childbirth.
Vaccines have also been found over the years for diseases like cholera, tetanus, whooping cough, bubonic plague, yellow fever and diphtheria.
Edward Jenner proved the effectiveness of cowpox as a vaccine against the more deadly smallpox in 1796. He said: “I hope that some day the practice of producing cowpox in human beings will spread over the world – when that day comes, there will be no more smallpox.”
Pharmaceutical company Aventis Pasteur announced in 2002 that it would donate 75 to 90 million doses of smallpox vaccine it had manufactured 30 years ago to the US federal government. The frozen stockpile had accumulated after the US was able to stop inoculations in 1972.
American Founding Father Benjamin Franklin saw one of his own children die of smallpox and mourned: “In 1736 I lost one of my sons ... by the small-pox.
“I long regretted bitterly... that I had not given it to him by inoculation.”
■ The Medicine Book, left, is published by DK, £18.99