Greatest Health Advance of 20th Century

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I'd have to say either penicilin or insulin.

[This message has been edited by Faerus Stoneslammer (edited April 25, 2002).]

 

But the pill is a great advance. With out it we would have to swallow gopp and other weird stuff that tastes nasty.

The needle because when some one cant swallow a pill then how are the doctor's going to give them what they need? Needles are the answers!

 

I have to go with morphine... mmmm... morphine... yumyum!

 

15 children! Shralp! Have you ever encountered a child before? Have you ever spoken to one? They are messy, noisy, expensive, and dangerous to your mental health!

/me shakes her head in bewilderment.

Fifteen. Huh.

(Before I have to edit this, and anyone gets all bent out of shape, I am a mother, and I love kids, I was just giving ol' Shralpy a hard time)

 

The swedish penis pump

 

DSRW, you lknow your comment can be seen as a very, very perverted one?

My choice has to be penicilin, but I also give my suppoer to Xenecor.

Ara
(Who has a hurting mouse hand....)

 

HA! you just made the first laugh of the day Arabwel. Naughty Naughty DRSW...

 

Peniciilin, by our very own Alexander Flemming, in whose building I now sit typing...

 

Damona_Jihad, I encounter children all the time.

Usually they're ops in the chatroom.

(Sorry. I just don't seem to be able to stop making short jokes.)

 

Yeah, I know that running water was invented by the Romans, it had just slipped my mind.



Or, seriously, how about anesthesia?

 

If you don't mind me asking, could you please enlighten me as to why the contraceptive pill is the greatest health advance of the twentieth century. I admit to not being well informed, but I would have thought that the popularity of chemical birth control, as opposed to barrier devices such as condoms and diaphragms would have been a major factor in the spread of STDs which are now a major health problem.

[This message has been edited by Ironbeard (edited April 27, 2002).]

 

The biggest health advance has to be blood tranfusion. without that known of the major operations we do todsay would be possible.

 

Well, Ironbeard, since you ask, I will.

Condoms and diaphragms have, as you may know, an approximately 30% failure rate when used outside the lab. That is to say that every fourth time you have sex, on average, you get pregnant. Not good odds.

Unwanted pregnancy, I believe, has contributed directly and indirectly to more human misery through the ages than any other single cause, with war perhaps in second place. Directly -- women forced into motherhood, men forced into fatherhood, children born to starve or be abused -- its impact cannot really be overstated, can it?

And indirectly the threat of pregnancy has ever held women prisoner to their bodies in a way men have never known. Women who were anything but mothers could only be isolated anomalies until 1961.

Another indirect cost -- frigidity. How free can you be to enjoy sex when you must fear its awesome outcome? What a foolish thing it would be to sleep with someone you like, but may not want as a husband -- when you have a one in four chance of having his child.

Sexually transmitted diseases have always been with us -- and where a diaphragm is no protection to either partner, condoms certainly do not convey invulnerability. The odds of catching a disease, against the odds of having a child, are small -- as is the effect on one's life, relatively speaking.

The Pill gave women the ability to plan their futures, to enjoy sex for itself, to optimize the lives of those children they may choose to have, or not. The Pill gave men all these advantages and -- free women, able at last to be their equals in interests, in learning, in sheer doggishness.

It was a seismic change in people's lives. No disease cure can touch it.

 

I'd say peniciline, since it saved my mom's life in post 1945-something when she got peniciline treatment for diphteria in a british army hospital, and became the only survivor of the 10 kids in her room. Weird moment for me when I was in Glasgow in front of the hospital where Fleming discovered peniciline.

Smallpox vaccination is a little older, nontheless a huge step ahead. I'd rather say desease research and vaccination in general, achievements of Loius Pasteur and Robert Koch especially. Other than that I'd agree with joacqin and say modern medical system, sanitary system and hygiene which helped to drive the "three killers", plague, pox and cholera, out of the western world.

[This message has been edited by Ragusa (edited April 28, 2002).]

 

I suppose we talk about two things Methylviolet. The Pill is not a health advance. Health advances cure your health. Makes your health advance, aye? The Pill doesn't near cure as many lives as many other ideas mentioned in this thread.

But I do agree that it is a mighty fine invention. If put in another category it sure is a winner. No doubt.

 

The Bacta Tank

 

An interesting aspect of the pill is that the it contributes to the pheneomenon of male infertility due to use of the pill in early pregnancy - research showed that the infertility comes as a result of the hormone shock to the male foetus. This happens when the pill is not used as scheduled and then the foetus is conceived "inbetween", with continued use of the pill right after. That much for health advance. There's nothing more fun that toying around with mother nature.

But I agree, when used properly it's a mighty fine thing.

[This message has been edited by Ragusa (edited May 02, 2002).]