United States healthcare spending in 2009 averaged more than $8000 per person, for a total of $2.5 trillion (17.6% of gross domestic product.)
By 2018 these totals are projected to be $4.3 trillion (20.3% of GDP and $13,100 for every resident.)
Healthcare Spending in the United States
September 2nd, 2010Origin of the Word “Anesthesia”
August 23rd, 2010The term “anesthesia” was coined in 1846 by physician and noted poet Oliver Wendall Holmes, Sr. in a letter to William G. Morton, the dentist who is credited with the first written description of the use of ether in a medical procedure to relieve pain. Immodestly predicting that his new term would be spoken by every civilization countless times, Holmes chose the prefix “an” meaning without and root “aesthesia” which roughly means feeling.
Holmes is also credited with coining the term “Boston Brahmin,” of which he was one.
Dr. Harvey Cushing – Pulitizer Prize Winner
July 19th, 2010
Harvey Cushing as photographed by Ida Tarbell in 1908
The only surgeon to win a Pulitizer Prize was Harvey Cushing, who was awarded the prize in 1925 for his biography of fellow Johns Hopkins titan Dr. William Osler.
Ephraim McDowell, Pioneering Surgeon
July 18th, 2010
Kentucky physician and surgeon Ephraim McDowell
Kentucky physician Ephraim McDowell (1771-1830) has the distinction in American surgery of being the first surgeon to perform an intraabdominal operation when he performed an ovariotomy in 1809 in Danville, Kentucky. His case list also includes the surgical removal of a bladder stone from James Polk, who later became President of the United States.
There is a statue of McDowell in the United States Capitol.
Kit Carson, Master Hunting-Knife Surgeon
July 17th, 2010Christopher “Kit” Carson is an American hunter, trapper, and frontiersman whose exploits leading John Fremont on his expeditions to the West are now the stuff of myth and legend. What is generally not well known, however, is that Carson was considered to be an expert, although self-taught, surgeon whose advice and treatment was sought throughout the West.
Kit Carson
Carson’s surgical career started when he assisted on his first amputation at the age of 16, a forearm amputation done on muledriver Andrew Broaddus.
He was considered particularly adept at removing Indian arrowheads buried deep in the flesh and taught a technique for removing arrowheads that were still attached to the shaft that counselled grabbing the protruding shaft, pushing it forward until the arrow pierced the skin on the opposing skin surface, cutting the arrow from the wooden shaft and then backing out the shaft.
Ironically, Carson survived several life-threatening penetrating wounds in his lifetime completely without the aid of professional medical help only to die in 1868 in the presence of a doctor of a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm, an event which the “modern” physician could do little about.
American Cancer Society Releases List of 19 Chemicals To Be Avoided
July 16th, 2010The American Cancer Society has named a list of 19 chemicals and shift work as things that may very likely signficantly increase the risk of cancer. Chemicals on the list included chloroform, formaldehyde, carbon black, titanium dioxide, indium phosphide, and cobalt tungsten carbide.
Pre-eminent Surgeon Dr. William S. Halsted’s Death… From A Post-Operative Surgical Complication
July 6th, 2010Pioneering late eighteenth and early nineteenth century surgeon Dr. William S. Halsted was operated on August 25, 1922 at the age of 70 for a “biliary condition” by his own surgical team at Johns Hopkins University. He developed an early post-operative pneumonia and died on September 7, 1922.
Snake Oil – Effective Treatment Or Is It Just… Snake Oil?
July 4th, 2010
Snake oil is a traditional Chinese medicine obtained from the Chinese water snake Enhydris chinensis. Although it is still sold in traditional Chinese pharmacies as a legitimate remedy for pain and inflammation, especially in rheumatoid arthritis and other joint conditions, in the United States the term snake oil is used to denote a product that is misleading, worthless, or fraudulent.
Despite this perjorative use of the term snake oil, studies show that the substance likely has real physiological and medicinal benefits. Snake oil from the Chinese water snake contains 20% eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), which is the highest concentration found in nature (in contrast, salmon oil contains about 16-18% EPA.)
EPA is one of the precursor molecules found in the prostaglandin pathway and is highly anti-inflammatory. The EPA found in Chinese snake oil can be absorbed through the skin.
So, if snake oil is rich in EPA and highly anti-inflammatory, how did snake oil get it’s bad reputation? Perhaps it was a situation not all that different than today’s battle for market share between Apple and Microsoft.
Snake oil was first brought into the United States by Chinese laborers working on railroad gangs building the transcontinental railway. It was provided to fellow American and European railroad workers as a salve for aching joints and muscles and likely was effective in bringing relief.
This provoked the ire of travelling patent medicine salesmen, who were also hawking completely unregulated remedies for various ailments and likely sensed encroachment on their profits.
The new snake oil product was quickly decried as worthless and ineffective compared to the existing formulas by those with an interest in having it be so, a claim bolstered in part by the fact that new snake oil batches were made with rattlesnake oil, which contains only 8% EPA.
The Chinese laborers either had no interest or ability in combating these claims and as a result of this negative publicity campaign, the use of patent medicines flourished and snake oil became… well, snake oil.
Tattoos on Bronze Age Mummy Discovered In 1991 – Acupuncture Points?
June 15th, 2010Scientists were thrilled in 1991 when hikers in Austria discovered the nearly completely preserved body of a Bronze Age man man frozen in a glacier. One interesting finding is that the body had very easily decipherable tattoo markings on his inner knee and back that exactly correspond to some of the body’s major acupuncture points.
The Origin and Use of Gin As a Medicinal
June 14th, 2010The modern day spirit known as gin was developed by Dutch physician Fransciscus Sylvius in the 16th century and was sold in pharmacies as a diuretic and a treatment for gout, gallstones, and stomach ailments
Gin is distilled spirits flavored or redistilled with juniper berries. Juniper berries have been known since ancient times to have pharmacological properties. Juniper-laced concoctions were used as a treatment of plague (rather unsuccessfully) from the 11th century on.
Gin was also the base spirit for quinine (”tonic”) used as prophylaxis against malaria by non-indigenous peoples before the advent of modern day chemoprevention. Hence the gin and tonic.