The History of Medicine

This week, we'll continue our talk of prosthetics, but this time focused on joints. As it turns out, joint replacements have been around for a long time, thanks to some early pioneers like Themistocles Gluck, and Jules Pean. After them, you have a series of scientists and doctors trying out new materials, getting new pros and cons each time, but steadily improving, which continues to this very day. Pean's Artificial ShoulderCheck out our website!E-mail me!Say hi on Facebook!Transcripts and Sources here!

This week, part 1 of our talk of prosthetics. We talk about the ancient through modern history of limb prostheses, which starts out with peg legs, and evolves into incredibly complex operations and surgeries that can restore much of a patient's original limb functions. Check out our website!E-mail me!Say hi on Facebook!Transcripts and Sources here!

This week, just a little bit after Valentine's day, we learn to deal with rejection... organ transplant rejection, that is. We walk through the earliest experiments with internal organ transplant, through the pioneering work in the 50s with kidney transplants, and finally to the modern day.Check out our website!E-mail me!Say hi on Facebook!Transcripts and Sources here!

This week, we finish off our history of cardiac surgery. We invent two new procedures to deal with blockages in coronary arteries: one goes through the blockages, and the other goes around. Then, some brilliant folks invent pacemakers, and then implantable defibrillators. Check out our website!E-mail me!Say hi on Facebook!Transcripts and Sources here!

This week, we get to cardiac surgery. It starts with operations on the pericardium, lots of people getting stabbed in the chest, and for this week, ends with inducing hypothermia and using people as heart-lung machines.Website: http://thehistoryofmedicine.buzzsprout.com/E-mail: thehistoryofmedicinepodcast@gmail.comFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheHistoryOfMedicine/Transcripts and Sources here!

This week, we talk about lung surgery. it starts with Carlo Fornanini adding gas into the chest cavity, then doctors removing pus from the chest, even removing ribs to do it. Then, Willliam Macewen figures out intubation, and other folks bring us modern mechanical ventilators. Website: http://thehistoryofmedicine.buzzsprout.com/E-mail: thehistoryofmedicinepodcast@gmail.comFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheHistoryOfMedicine/Transcripts and Sources here!

We finally get around to neurosurgery this week. We have a whole lot of cameos, but also some new faces. Slowly but surely, doctors put together a rudimentary map of the brain and its function, and then we move to better and better actual operations. In modern times,we've got great imaging and diagnostic tools, and even interfaces with the brain directly. Website: http://thehistoryofmedicine.buzzsprout.com/E-mail: thehistoryofmedicinepodcast@gmail.comFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheHistoryOfMedicine/Transcripts and Sources here!

Let's look at our inner most selves... literally, with endoscopy. This week, Phillip Bozzini makes the light conductor, and others build upon his work, eventually yielding endoscopes. From there, a great many doctors, many gynecologists, create laparoscopy, using endoscopes with a surgical incision to investigate the inside of the body, and from there, we get modern laparoscopic surgery. Website: http://thehistoryofmedicine.buzzsprout.com/E-mail: thehistoryofmedicinepodcast@gmail.comFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheHistoryOfMedicine/Transcripts and Sources here!

I goofed up last time, we're actually going to talk about abdominal surgery this week. Abdominal surgery pretty much stems from two old operations. The first, colostomies, was proposed by Alex Littre, and then actually done by Claude Duret. The second, ovariotomies, or the removal of ovarian cysts, was pushed forward by Ephraim McDowell, despite much resistance. Colostomy ImageWebsite: http://thehistoryofmedicine.buzzsprout.com/E-mail: thehistoryofmedicinepodcast@gmail.comFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheHistoryOfMedicine/Transcripts and Sources here!

Let's finish up the story of plastic surgery this week. We left off in World War I, where Harold Gillies and William Lane will revolutionize facial restoration, gathering a team of specialists. Then, in World War II, Archibald McIndoe, one of Gillies' understudies, helps thousands of wounded soldiers with new treatments for burns, both surgical and psychological.Website: http://thehistoryofmedicine.buzzsprout.com/E-mail: thehistoryofmedicinepodcast@gmail.comFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheHistoryOfMedicine/Transcripts and Sources here!