Page 50 - GK Class 05

44 Medical Marvels

Medical Science has developed over the centuries and has helped to save
millions of lives from chronic diseases.

Let us read about some marvels of the medical world.

Pasteurization is a process of killing germs in food material by heating.
It was discovered by a French chemist, Louis Pasteur. Other discoveries
by Pasteur include methods of preventing diseases like anthrax, chicken
pox, cholera and most importantly, rabies.

In 1819, the French physician, Rene Laennec
created a tube through which he could hear a
patient’s heartbeat. He placed this foot-long,
trumpet-shaped wooden tube on the chests of his
patients and could hear the various sounds made
by the lungs and heart. This was the first
stethoscope. Later, two earpieces were added to
this early single-tube stethoscope.

In the current world, about 40 million people suffered from blindness
and about 140 million people are suffered from low vision and if we talk
about India we are having the world’s largest number of people
suffering from blindness. The objective of bionic eye is the same as to
restore visual signal to whom suffering from eye disease such as retinitis
pigmentosa. In this, a video camera is integrated with a pair of glasses
which will capture and process images. The images are wirelessly sent
to small processor which converts it into electronic signal and these signal further
transmitted to a retinal implant or electrode which send visual signal to brain for further
processing. So, by this, even blind people also have vision.

The earliest known kinds of injection syringes were used in ancient
India, China and North Africa. But, those syringes could only be used to
inject through the natural openings of the body or by making a cut on
the skin. In 1844, an Irish physician, Francis Rynd invented the hollow
needle. In 1853, Charles Pravaz, a French physician, developed the first
practical metal syringe. Doctors use disposable syringes these days.

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