Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
FIGURE 1.3, cont'd
(b) a modern ECG setup. Computer technology and electronics advances have greatly sim-
plified and strengthened the ECG as a diagnosis tool.
of practically all the organ systems of the body was possible by the use of barium salts and a
wide variety of radiopaque materials.
The power this technological innovation gave physicians was enormous. The x-ray
permitted them to diagnose a wide variety of diseases and injuries accurately. In addition,
being within the hospital, it helped trigger the transformation of the hospital from a passive
receptacle for the sick poor to an active curative institution for all the citizens of American
society.
The introduction of sulfanilamide in the mid-1930s and penicillin in the early 1940s
significantly reduced the main danger of hospitalization: cross-infection among patients.
With these new drugs in their arsenals, surgeons were able to perform their operations
without prohibitive morbidity and mortality due to infection. Also, despite major early-
twentieth-century advancements in the field of hematology (including blood type differ-
entiation and the use of sodium citrate to prevent clotting), blood banks were not fully
developed until the 1930s, when technology provided adequate refrigeration. Until that
time, “fresh” donors were bled, and the blood was transfused while it was still warm.
As technology in the United States blossomed, so did the prestige of American medicine.
From 1900 to 1929, Nobel Prize winners in physiology or medicine came primarily from
Europe, with no American among them. In the period 1930 to 1944, just before the end of
World War II, 19 Americans were honored as Nobel Prize Laureates. During the postwar
period (1945-1975), 102 American life scientists earned similar honors, and from 1975 to
2009, the number was 191. Thus, since 1930 a total of 312 American scientists, including
some born abroad, have performed research that was significant enough to warrant the
