The Emergence of Modern Medicine from Ancient Folkways (and Other Medical Texts) (Pamphlet)

Description

Authors: Alvarez, Walter C. (1884-1978)–The Emergence of Modern Medicine from Ancient Folkways

Cook, E. Fullerton (1879-1961 )–National and International Standards for Medicines

Robinson, William–The Healing Properties of Allantoin and Urea Discovered Through the Use of Maggots in Human Wounds

Parran, Thomas (1892-1968)–The Aims of the Public Health Service

Publisher: Smithsonian Institution

Pub Date: 1938

Binding: Paperback

Condition: Fair.  Binding tight.  No marks, tears.  Upper corner of text (not the covers) has approx. 1″ bend that extends through entire text.  These four reports were part of the 1937 Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution that was in poor condition.  I had these reports excised from that original edition and rebound in paperback.

Notes: Pamphlet.  “…scientific medicine has immeasurably outdistanced the folk medicine, faith healing, cult medicine, and out-and-out quackery which has always competed with it, these competitors, which one would think might now be abandoned as superfluous, still flourish in the land, and still maintain their original hold on the affections of mankind.” (Alvarez, p. 409.)  Gosh, medicine and politics.  Who knew?  Alvarez was the father of the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Luis Alvarez, and the grandfather of the geologist Walter Alvarez.  The son and grandson were the discoverers of the K-Pg boundary, the sedimentary layer created by the asteroid impact that killed the dinosaurs and ended the Cretaceous era.

“Uniform standards for medicines are a recognized need for the medical world.  Many substances now used in the treatment of disease must be exactly controlled as to strength, since they are often highly potent and require exact dosage if they are to produce the desired therapeutic effects.” (Cook, p. 431)

“A few years ago Dr. William S. Baer (1929) presented a new and unusual treatment of slow-healing wounds such as the persistent and widespread bone disease known as osteomyelitis.  Sterile blowfly maggots were placed directly into wounds that had failed to heal under other treatments, an after a few applications of maggots the wounds in general became cleaner and healing began to take place…Such a novel method as this aroused a good deal of interest in the manner in which maggots could produce beneficial results in stubborn discharging wounds.  In nature the maggots feed upon dead and decaying animal material, and this loathsome habit naturally suggested that in wounds the maggots remove necrotic tissue and pus….The progress of healing in resistant cases of long standing was sometimes outstanding, however, and indicated that the maggots were not only acting as scavengers but were actually injecting a potent healing substance into the wound.” (Robinson, p. 451)  Sterile blowfly maggots?  “The contents of a fly’s egg are sterile although the outer surface is heavily contaminated with bacteria. Sterilizing the outer surface of the fly eggs and then allowing them to hatch in a sterile environment produces sterile (clean) maggots.” ( https://www.google.com/search?q=How+do+you+get+sterile+maggots%3F&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiuq-vBxab6AhUmAzQIHWqCBIsQzmd6BAgYEAU&biw=1680&bih=926&dpr=1 )

“It was in 1798 when John Adams was President, that Congress passed ‘an act for the relief of sick and disable seamen.’ Under its provisions a deduction of 20 cents per month was made from the wages of each seaman on the merchant ships of the United States.  The funds were deposited with the collector of customs in a marine hospital fund and used to build and operate a series of hospitals in the principal ports.  This was the beginning of a Federal medical service, and incidentally, the first health insurance system.” (Parran, p. 463)  Parran was the Surgeon General of the United States from 1936-1948.  What’s the big fuss with Medicare, Medicaid, ObamaCare, et al?  The system is almost 225 years old.