16 The Beginnings of Medical Technology
Makenzie Steele
16.1 Introduction
Keywords
- Folk medicine – medical procedures that relied on the use of plants and herbs for healing properties
- Placebo effect – a harmless medicine or treatment given to a patient with the intent of making them feel better merely due to the psychology of them believing the medicine will heal them
- Electrocardiogram – a machine used to provide the simplest and quickest information about the heartbeat by placing electrodes onto specific areas of the body. They are connected by wires to an ECG machine where the heartbeat is measured by the pulses it sends
- Electroencephalogram (EEG) – a way of measuring brain disorders through the use of electrodes in which pulses sent by the brain cells are recorded as wavy lines on the EEG machine
- Cardiac Defibrillators – devices that bring back the normal heartbeat of a person by sending electric pulses or shocks to their heart
- Pacemaker – medical devices that generate electrical impulses delivered by electrodes to the heart to cause the muscle chambers to beat and pump blood, in turn regulating or replacing a regular heartbeat
- Computed Tomography Scanner (CT Scan) – these machines combine a series of X-ray images taken from different angles of the body in order to make more detailed photos of the internal bones, blood vessels, and soft tissues by using computers to put multiple images together into one cross sectional photograph
- Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) – these scanners use magnetic fields and computer generated radio waves to get detailed photos of organs and tissues in the body
- Technological Determinism – the idea that a society’s technology determines the development of its social and cultural values
Learning Objectives
By the end of this chapter, students should be able to:
- Describe the origins of medicine in ancient times.
- List different medical technology milestones that occurred in the 1800’s to 1900’s.
- Explain the influence of the various medical milestone’s on future medical advancements.
- Identify examples of accidental medical inventions and explain their importance.
- Summarize the effects that past medical technologies have on today’s world.
Imagine you have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow for a check up. First, you arrive at the office, they record your height and weight, you wait for the doctor, then the inspection begins. The doctor takes out all their tools and begins listening to your heartbeat through a stethoscope. The stethoscope seems like such a simple technology, but it has shaped the way we do things today, even 206 years after its invention. Have you ever thought about what people did before modern doctors and medicine? My guess is probably not, because we don’t often think about the historic progression that got us to where we are today.
Before diving into the depths of this section about more complex medical technologies such as telehealth, genetic engineering, machinery, and more,