 |
| Major
Medical Specialty Fields |
| The
Hippocratic Oath has
provided a blueprint for medical ethics for more
than 2,000 years. It first lays down the
obligation of a doctor to his teacher and his
teacher's family. Then it outlines his standards
of behavior in serving the patient's interest. |
 Origins
of the "Universal" Symbol for a
Prescription The
symbol is traceable to the sign of Jupiter, which
was placed on ancient prescriptions to appeal to
that god for favorable action of the medicine. |
 Joseph Lister
discovered that sterilizing surgical areas,
instruments and surgeons' hands reduced
post-surgical infection and death dramatically.
He called the practice of such sterilization antiseptic
surgery. |
 Béla Schick
developed the Schick Test, whichinvolved
injecting a small amount of diphtheria toxin
under the skin; the extent of a child's immunity
to the disease could be determined by the
presence or absence of a reaction around the
injection site. |
 Sylvester
Graham advocated a lifestyle that
included abstince from sex except for
procreation, sleeping on hard mattresses, and a
strictly vegetarian diet. As part of that diet he
invented a special whole wheat flour, from which
he made the first Graham Crackers. |
 John R.
Brinkley gained "fame" by
transplanting goat gonads into elderly male
patients with the promise of sexual rejuvenation.
He turned that fame into a national radio program
in which he advertised his treatments and
concoctions. |
 Albert Bruce
Sabin was influenced to study polio
by an epidemic of that disease that hit New York
City in 1931. He began testing a live-virus
vaccine in 1954, and by the 1970's that vaccine
had succeeded in nearly eradicating polio from
the world. |
