History of Medicine

Today, March 30, is celebrated as National Doctors' Day to honor the noble profession and show our gratitude to the many doctors who show up to work for a greater calling than most professions. On this day, I thought it would be fitting to honor the first doctors in history, those who paved the way for the medical profession to become a sought-after career path for people like me. I thought I would explore the earliest physicians known to the different ancient civilizations that I have covered in this blog and their place in history. Looking at the list of ancient physicians, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ancient_physicians), I found the earliest known physician to be Egyptian, so let's start with that. Around the same time, medicine was developing as a science in India too. Ancient Greece and China appear to have dedicated medical professionals almost 2000 years later.  Egypt: The oldest known Egyptian physician is Imhotep, who lived around 2700 BCE . He was worshippe

Following up on my previous post on the use of pi in science, I wanted to write about something very fascinating I found. Not only is pi a fundamental concept for geometry, it apparently has a connection to the very building blocks of life. Biological sciences appear farthest from math, yet this enigmatic number plays a role in biological pattern formation, i.e. a leopard's spots, a zebra's stripes, a leaf's feathering etc. I have to admit this concept is still not very clear, and I need to do a lot more reading to understand it fully, but here's a high-level description. The creation of specific organs and patterns from a single group of cells was a long-standing mystery to scientists until it was unlocked by the genius that cracked Hitler's Enigma code during World War II. Regarded as the father of computer science and artificial intelligence, Alan Turing's interests went far beyond computers into the depths of the nature of life. After the end of the war, in

On this Pi Day, besides celebrating with a piece of pecan pie, I wanted to explore the connection this mathematical enigma has with ancient science.  Not surprisingly, the concept of Pi was known to many ancient civilizations including the Indians, Chinese, Babylonians, and Egyptians. However, its modern name and symbol   came much later -- in the  1700s after William Jones introduced the symbol  π and Euler popularized it. Indians are known to be the earliest users of pi, although western texts often overlook this fact and attribute the first calculation of the value of pi to Archimedes of Syracuse around 200 BCE. However, Pi has been mentioned as early as 1500 BCE in the Hindu religious text, the Rigveda. It is believed that ancient Indians were familiar with pi even earlier, but this part of its history is largely unknown to the western scientific world. The value of pi was approximated to be 3 by most ancient civilizations. The first person to calculate the value more accurately wa

We stand at the cusp of a new era of human reproduction where parents can choose to have babies with specific genetic traits. Companies like Californian start-up Orchid are starting to offer embryo screening which allows prospective parents to identify the healthiest embryo for pregnancy by identifying defective genes. A natural progression of the In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) technology that originated in the 70’s allows genetic screening and diagnosis of the embryo prior to implantation, enabling doctors to selectively implant embryos that are devoid of certain genetic defects. While Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD) gives parents the ability to screen for severe, life-threatening (or life-limiting) inheritable diseases like cystic fibrosis and Huntington’s disease on one hand, it also opens up the possibility of something scientists have warned against for decades – designer babies! A designer baby is a genetically engineered baby with specially selected traits ranging from l

The exploitation of black people and appropriation of human rights by reason of public health boasts bold imperialistic and colonial ideology. During the colonization of the Philippines, the US used the lack of hygiene of the Filipino people as an excuse to assert control over the population under the guise of civilizing the population, in the process of furthering their own political goals. The practice of public defecation was touted as the reason for Americans to take control of public health in the Philippines. Filipinos were treated as lesser humans, allowing Americans a self-imposed power granted on account of their comparative civility.  Rather than helping improve their infrastructure and education, Americans used intrusive methods in studying the feces of the Filipino people, an act that was deeply offensive and dehumanizing. In Excremental Colonialism, Warwick Anderson states that “the work meant invasion of the accepted rights of the home and of the individual on a scale per

Following up on my last few posts on the importance of informed consent in medical research, I wanted to dig deeper into the practice of clinical trials and patients' rights in medical research. The concept of informed consent, the basis of which is the stipulation that people will make the right choice for their own health and wellness, is a well-established principle of bioethics. However, it is less clear about its prevalence in public health, and the recent covid-19 pandemic has further stoked discussions about patients' rights and value of consent in the face of a global health event. The DNA genetic testing company, 23andMe, has also demonstrated how consent is an obstruction to researchers’ ability to use and exploit personal data. It is known that the company's primary goal is to gather genetic data that can then be used for research. However, the company has feined an interest in empowering individuals to take control of their own health, and used that for their ma

As I wrote in my previous post, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced in 2021, amidst much fanfare, the successful conclusion of a pilot program for the malaria vaccine developed by GSK and that it was recommending a broad rollout in Africa. A nurse with the new malaria vaccine. Image courtesy: Gavi While the decision marked a landmark victory in the fight against malaria, a disease that has plagued humans since the origins of mankind, it was not without criticism, including from the well-respected Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which has funded part of the research into the vaccine.  The vaccine, known as RTS,S and developed by GSK, requires four doses to achieve a rather dismal efficacy of 30%. Despite it not meeting (or even coming close to) WHO's set goal of 75% efficacy, the organization gave the vaccine its full backing and support, even pushing forward with a pilot study in four African countries with nearly a million participants.  Critics have pointed out the l