Modern generally denotes something that is "up-to-date",
"new", or contemporary.
Health care
As per Wikipedia : “Health care (or healthcare)
is the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease, illness, injury,
and other physical and mental impairments in humans. Health care is delivered
by practitioners in medicine, chiropractic,
dentistry,
nursing, pharmacy, allied
health, and other care providers. It refers to the work done in
providing primary care, secondary care and tertiary care, as well as in public
health.”
Well, we are lucky to be born in a day and age where we
definitely have up to date health care and have facilities to detect even the most intricate health problems. To
make it more evident let’s talk of a day and age when there was no anaesthesia
Source : Surgery before anesthesia
by John T. Sullivan, MD MGH anesthesiology resident
“Elective surgery was performed very
infrequently prior to the advent of effective anesthesia. From 1821 to 1846,
the annual reports of the MGH recorded 333 surgeries, representing barely more
than one case per month. Surgery was a last and desperate resort. Reminiscing
in 1897 about preanesthesia surgery, one elderly Boston physician could only
compare it to the Spanish Inquisition. He recalled “yells and screams, most
horrible in my memory now, after an interval of so many years.” Over the
centuries, numerous techniques had been used to dull sensation for surgery.
Soporifics [sleep-inducing and awareness-dulling agents] and narcotics were
prepared from a wide range of plants, including marijuana, belladonna and
jimsonweed. Healers attempted to induce a psychological state of anesthesia by
mesmerism or hypnosis. Distraction could be provided by rubbing the patient
with counterirritants such as stinging nettles. A direct but crude way of
inducing a state of insensitivity was to knock the patient unconscious with a
blow to the jaw. But by 1846, “opium and alcohol were the only agents which
continued to be regarded as of practical value in diminishing the pain of
operations.” Unfortunately, the large doses of alcohol needed to produce
stupefaction were likely to cause nausea, vomiting and death instead of sleep.
Opium, while a strong analgesic, had significant side effects itself and was
typically not powerful enough to completely blunt a surgical stimulus.”
But on the contrary today surgeries are a
part of our normal life be it an appendix operation, a c-section and the like.
Things like robotics and minimally invasive surgeries are performed every now
and then. Open heart makes the person’s heart younger by 15 years is what it is
said colloquially. Could , people imagine it in the 1800s. To add to it even
what are known as lifestyle diseases were prevalent earlier but diagnosis were
not possible due to lack of infrastructure. Could people imagine knowing the
physical and mental well being of the foetus even before she was born.
Sonography had made it possible to click pictures of the unborn foetus.
Many pharmaceutical companies are investing
millions on research to make new medicines for illnesses that are incurable.
Birth control and population control have been possible. Women Health is being
given importance. These are just a few ways that reflect how modern day
medicine is touching our lives.
It is very popularly said that “Child birth is
but a second life for a woman”. Can we say that, after so much being done in
the fields of gynaecology? The incidences of birth related death has
decreased. Talking about gynecology
again there are fertility treatments for those who cannot have children. We
could have not image something like this years back.
Diseases like thyroid, diabetes, migraine,
osteoporosis, neurological disorders ,
hearth problems to name a few were not
detected and were untreated
Modern, healthcare has given a second life to
many and has increased the health span manifold for the human race. There is no
other way to describe it but to call it a boon to mankind. Hope it gets better
with time.
