Medical tools 1920s

Ferry and chemist L. Fisher enabled the production of a measles antitoxin. Other French researchers who were credited with the discovery of a diptheria anatoxin also produced the first tetanus anatoxin. During the early twenties, factories, hotels, clubs and department stores began installing electrically powered hot air hand dryers in wash rooms to replace paper and cloth towels in an effort to improve hygiene and reduce waste.

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine: Laureates - Karl Landsteiner - "for discovery of human blood types" Christiaan Eijkman, Sir Frederick Hopkins - "for discovery of various vitamins" Charles Nicolle - "for work on typhus" Julius Wagner-Jauregg - "for healing general paralysis by infection with malaria" Johannes Fibiger - "for elucidating Spiroptera carcinoma and artificially inducing cancer in an animal.

Banting, John Macleod - "for the discovery of insulin" Archibald V. Hill, Otto Meyerhof - "for research on muscles, especially their generation of heat and the relationship between oxygen consumption and lactic acid metabolism " The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section August Krogh - "for showing that the gas exchange in the lungs is ordinary diffusion". Insulin - In Dr. Frederick Banting of the University of Toronto had an idea that would solve the dreaded diabetes disorder.

Previous to this, a diagnosis of diabetes meant slowly wasting away to a certain death. Fred Banting and his colleague Charles Best were able to make a pancreatic extract which had anti-diabetic qualities which they successfully tested on diabetic dogs. An antique laboratory Bell Jar used for placing materials into a vacuum for testing and analysis. A s set of gynecological instruments from the collection of a practicing midwife of that era.

A Schiotz Tonoscope which was used to measure eye pressure Glaucoma prior to the introduction of modern computerized optical examination instruments.

The scientific and medical fields were responsible for the design and production of a number of interesting glass vessels and related tubing and valves This specific gravity separator can be used to extract heavier liquids which fall out of suspension in a chemical mixture. These devices were widely used in compound pharmacies and chemistry laboratories as an alternative to the centrifuge. A optical scope manufactured by Henry L. DeZeng's company became part of American Optical in the year In the late 's through the early 's, DeZeng was a leading pioneer in optical and ophthalmologic instruments for physicians and surgeons.

DeZeng's basic optical scope design was later improved upon by technology from the Welch-Allyn Company, still today a major manufacturer of physician's test instruments. This rechargeable set of DeZeng scopes remained state-of-the-art until the early 21st Century when the "grain-of-wheat" bulbs, used in these instruments since the days of Dr. DeZeng, were replaced by light emitting diodes.

This tangent galvanometer, built in the mids by the Milvay Scientific Instrument Company of Chicago, is an example of an early laboratory instrument that advanced the study of electricity in the days before the invention of the light bulb.

This item was a donation to the museum by Mr. Jim Lewis. Medical apparatus that uses Chloride Silver batteries to generate high-frequency electrical impulses.

In the late 's and early 's, it was a common belief that inducing high frequency electrical charges through the body would cure or prevent certain diseases. While disproved to some extent by modern science, similar devices are still made today and used in the treatment of certain degenerative nerve disorders.

The unit pictured in the two photos above, dates to around The Birtcher Hyfrecator was the first compact radio frequency scalpel. This type of instrument dates to the late s, however, many present day physicians and dermatologists are still using the Hyfrecator.

Bircher later sold the manufacturing rights for the Hyfrecator to Conned, and the modern instruments are now solid-state devices. The original Bircher units can still be found in the offices of many medical practices that were set up in the Mid-Twentieth Century.

To better deal with the plump and the priggish, he fashioned the first crude stethoscope in They can even quickly diagnose an enlarged liver. What was previously just a cough, for example, suddenly became tuberculosis due to the diagnostic power of the stethoscope, accompanied by new and increasingly effective treatments.

The question: What medical advance from the past century has made the greatest impact? One particular answer came up multiple times — and it was surprising in that it was a tool, not a treatment: the randomized controlled trial. An RCT randomly assigns medical study participants into an experimental group or a control group. As weaponry has advanced over the long course of human warfare, so too has the magnitude of injuries they cause on the battlefield.

Often called the first modern war because of its devastating new weapons, the American Civil War from to set a new standard for its sobering ability to inflict complex wounds in unparalleled numbers. New rifles extended the range of a volley from the 50 to yards of musket fire to more than yards, with much-increased accuracy.

And with the discovery of penicillin more than 60 years away, soldiers died from infected wounds far more than from anything else. The amputation saw had been around in one form or another since at least Roman times, when Aulus Cornelius Celsus, a Roman medical writer, described an amputation technique using a scalpel and bone saw.

But it was the Civil War that turned amputation kits from little-used medical curiosities into indispensable life-saving tools. Amputations, even in the unsanitary and rudimentary conditions of the time, turned complex injuries into simple ones by changing untreatable tattered wounds into manageable stumps. And there were more than 60, of them done — making up about three-quarters of all surgeries performed — saving more lives than any other wartime medical procedure.

All it took was a few minutes, a restraint team and a surgeon with an amputation kit containing scalpels, tenaculums to pull out and tie off arteries, and bone saws. Limbs were generally thrown into piles off to the side.

One exception was that of the amputated right leg of Maj. Daniel Sickles, a Union commander struck by a pound cannonball. But it was the invention of the first practical dialysis machine in the s that showed doctors could replace the function of even the most complex organs almost indefinitely.

And the iron lung, as well as its predecessor, the ventilator, are downright elementary in design compared with the large number of technologies that converge in a modern dialysis machine. Most importantly, though, is the impact of dialysis. Over , Americans currently receive lifesaving dialysis, an increase of 57 percent since , making it the most common organ replacement therapy device in use. The earliest evidence of condoms is found in a 12,year-old cave painting in Europe.

Rubbers bounced around for the next few thousand years as a form of birth control, but it was only in that they truly became a medical device of extraordinary importance. Condom usage to prevent disease had begun in earnest. The first versions used such materials as oiled linen and silk, sheep intestines, goat bladders and thin sheaths of leather.

Modern latex versions arrived in the s. As a transformative medical device, few can claim a role of such enormity as the condom in giving doctors a tool for preventing the scourges of STDs. For example, a report by the National Institutes of Health showed that correct and consistent use of condoms cuts the risk of contracting an HIV infection by 85 percent. Crude implements that archaeologists believe were used in trepanning — the practice of cutting holes in the head to relieve pressure from trauma or headaches — have been found in Neolithic sites around the world.

Kirkup references G. Harley, who published a study on the medical practices of the Mano tribe of Liberia in , as an example of isolated peoples who adapt common household items to their surgical tools. Needles, knives, thread, and most any other type of household item have, at one point, been used in surgery. In fact, Kirkup asserts that most contemporary surgical instruments — bone saws, surgical needles, scalpels, and similar items — are adaptations of their nonsurgical predecessors.

Some of the first specialized surgical tools came about in Ancient Greece, forged from iron, bronze, silver, and even gold — each designed solely for surgical use.

Galen of Pergamum, one of the most influential Greek surgeons of the second century A. In terms of exact tools, a Grecian healer could expect to own a scalpel or two of varying lengths, forceps used to crush the uvula before extracting it, hooks for use in dissection or wound repair, bone drills and forceps, catheters, bladder sounds, and maybe a speculum as well, in addition to other instruments of the time.

The Sushruta Samhita, one of the most important surgical textbooks ever written, describes 20 sharp and blunt surgical tools that were used in around the Indian subcontinent from roughly the sixth century B. Much of surgery on the subcontinent focused on cosmetic applications, and surgeons in this region used forceps, knives, and lancets made of steel to fix amputated noses and perform cataract surgery among other things.