Medical Equipment — Development and History of Medical Equipment

At the doctor’s office, hospital, or clinic, patients rarely consider the medical equipment around them. Medical equipment is a fundamental element of analysis, monitoring, and therapy. Even the simplest physical quiz might require a variety of high-tech medical equipment.

In 15th century Europe, during and after the horrors of the bubonic plague, autopsies begun to be performed at universities, and a primitive form of ‘scientific method’ begun to take hold in the minds of the educated. Practical surgery and composition studies began pharmacy refrigerator hong kong. These curious ancient Europeans laid the inspiration for modern science. They also laid the inspiration for the well known process of identifying a problem, creating a theory, testing the theory by most importantly noticing and playing; interpreting the data and drawing a conclusion.

Medical equipment prior to and even during the scientific wave was based on time-honored Greek and Roman ideas about science, which are not based on science at all, but on philosophy and superstition. Human health was known as a balance of 4 internal ‘humors’ by the body processes. The 4 humors– blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm, were analogous to the 4 components of the universe to the time-honored thinker, fire, air, water, and earth. Ailments, both physical and mental, were caused by an asymmetry of humors. The ideal body and mind balanced all 4 humors, subtly. To heal, doctors prescribed foods or procedures which will balance the fluids by the body processes. Some of the prescription medications appear to make sense– fevers were treated with cold, dry temperature to combat the hot, wet over stimulation by the body processes. But when that failed, often the next step was blood letting. Unnecessary purging and enemas were also common cures, which might have helped some people, but also might have caused more problems than they sorted. George Washington’s death has recently been credited, not to the strep tonsils he probably had as he died, but to the bloodletting and mercury enema fond of him to cure it. Not-quite-scientific medical cures are still available and employed by many, asap.

Since the 15th century, Western science has focused on examining and noticing the body, and has created tools to make this easier. X-ray imaging and after this MRI devices are only extensions of the first autopsies and bodily studies, which strove to understand how the human body actually operates. Diagnostic instruments like ophthalmoscopes, blood pressure monitors, and stethoscopes are likewise extensions of the ancient examination. Quiz tables, gloves, and other medical accessories are only the newest versions of tools which have been used for centuries. Medical technology and medical knowledge feed off from each other. Take for instance hypertension. Although devices for measuring blood pressure have existed for over 100 years, only within the last 19 years have the connections of blood pressure to disease, genetic makeup, and lifestyle been fully explored. As the incredible importance of measuring blood pressure increased, new technologies were explored to keep accurate measurements and records. It was not prior to the prevalence of automatic blood pressure monitors that a correlation could be made between tellings taken by a human and tellings taken in a controlled, singled out environment. The medical equipment and the medical knowledge then form a constantly turning Gordian Knot, one side tightening, as the other loosens, backwards and forwards.

What does the future hold for this push and pull of technology and scientific query? Recent developments in nanotechnology and genetic makeup, along with more and more powerful supercomputers might create a situation where what it means to be human actually changes, due to technology. For example, scientists have actually created simple life forms out of previously non-living DNA material. Whilst it doesn’t seem that dramatic at first, it’s an important development. Medical equipment acts as an off shoot for investigation of the how’s and why’s of the human body, and as science attracts up and outclasses the investigations, completely new kinds of medical analysis, monitoring and therapy may result. Imagine the ability to grow new areas inside the body. Limb re-growth is possible in other creatures, why not in humans? And if it is possible, would the developments be truly ‘human? ha The future is unknowable; the only aspect about it we can understand is that it will appear nothing like we could have previously imagined. In retrospect, we’ll see the signs, like we always do, but this is hindsight, not foresight. Presently, technology marches forward and it continues, as a process, to change human life.