Would you or someone you know be dead if not for a medical invention of the 20th century?
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Well, my father will be 98 in October, and has to take all sorts of tablets; so I doubt he's be still around without them. FWIW both his father and grandfather died in their early 80s.
Also, a family at my Church has a foster-child who came to them aged about six months and weighing about half what she should have done. She barely made it even with the modern treatments.
I had life and death surgery for a galbladder infection after nothing worked to treat it. The forest of antibiotics they tried didn't stop it but slowed it and most likely meant that I'm still here. Pretty much anyone who's had a cut which could have infected may be alive because of antibiotics.
Sad thing is, they have a lifespan and it cost more and more to find ones that work, something the commercial companies are NOT working on. A federally funded study is conducting the research on new antibiotics and something which stops the killer varieties.
Sometimes these leaps last only as long as we keep trying.
I'd be dead. At age 32 I was diagnosed with breast cancer. The tumor was deep in my breast and hard to find, and very fast growing. I doubt it would have even been found until it was way too late, if I'd lived a century ago.
I'd be dead. At age 32 I was diagnosed with breast cancer. The tumor was deep in my breast and hard to find, and very fast growing. I doubt it would have even been found until it was way too late, if I'd lived a century ago.
In the United States, the answer is yes regardless of who you are.
In 1900, 10% of American children did not live to see their first birthday (it is now 0.7%, or 1/14th of what is was then). At the same time, the mortality rate of women due to complications during childbirth has dropped from between 6 and 9 per 1000 live births, to 0.1% (or, 1 per 10000 live births, a drop of between 60x and 90x).
The bulk of these declining mortality rates is the result of devices or practices developed since that time.
So virtually all of us know multiple someones who would not be alive today were in not for modern technology - even though we, and even they, may not be aware of it.
My wife is Type 1 diabetic, so yeah... With a modern insulin pump though, it's pretty easy to control.
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