Purging, Bloodletting and Algorithms
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the old remedies of purging and bloodletting were left behind. Lister’s concepts of cleanliness had finally become widely accepted. Human anatomy was documented. The culprits of bacteria were identified. Medical knowledge base was growing beyond imagination. Yet doctors were stuck. There was no cure for a bacterial infection. There was no cure for a strep infection. If you were stricken with a strep throat, there was a good chance that you would die. Doctors had no solutions and people of all ages died from pneumonia, wound infections, meningitis, and more. Infection was feared. Today all this is unimaginable. But then, Ehrlich’s ‘magic bullet’ was yet to be discovered. The world changed forever with the discoveries of sulfa in 1936. Penicillin was refined and put into production in the 1940s. There were many more ‘magic bullets’ to follow. Doctors finally had new tools for their toolbox. It became the age of knowledge plus tools. Life became much better. Lifespans became longer. Today, in the twenty-first century, our doctors have …