Over the past 200 years, revolutionary progress in medicine has enabled us to fight some of the deadliest diseases and improve public health. Better hygiene, healthier lifestyle and medical progress have increased expected life expectancy around the world. These breakthroughs were led by visionary doctors who overcome monumental odds through curiosity, genius and determination.
The insatiable curiosity and openness of these notable doctors led them to serendipithous discoveries that accelerated the treatment, control and prevention of many deadly diseases and saved millions of lives. Here are some fascinating facts of unintended medical discoveries.
Related: 10 old fertility treatments that you do not want to use today
10 ED — fabric arose from failed heart -drug experiments
Erectile dysfunction (ED), a condition affecting men based on ten percent of their age (eg 60% of men in the 60s and so on), were rarely talked about until the discovery of the miraculous “small blue pill” or viagra. Before Viagra, the fight against impotence was brought with the help of monkey -tuft implants, tigerpenis soup and narrowing rings – of which no one gave results.
Pharmaceutical company Pfizer tested a heart medicine that relaxes smooth muscles. After a series of weak original results, the trial had to be interrupted. The report from a lucky last trench attempt, as reported by Dr. Nick Terret, a leading chemist on the experimental team, read, “Some muscle pain, seen some headaches and some gastrointestinal disturbances, oh yes, and some of the nurses noticed erection.”
A sharp researcher on the experimental team realized the potential of the unintended discovery, resulting in 21 very successful trials of what became viagra – a drug that works by improving blood flow to the penis when the user is awakened. The unintended discovery was a massive victory for the producer and … is humanity.[1]
9 Children inoculated with cowpx to fight another disease
Cups were a terrible disease that killed 400,000 people every year in Europe alone in the early 18th century. The deadly disease killed one -third of the infected adults and eight out of 10 infants. The symptoms included body pain, high fever, a sore throat, headache, difficulty breathing and crazy pustules filled with pus all over the body. Those who survived the disease were left pockmarked and frightened.
In 1796, Edward Jenner, a British doctor, accidentally discovered that people who had cowpox, a harmless disease, never got cups. Jenner inoculated an eight-year-old child with pus from cowpox lesions in a milk girl. After the boy recovered, Jenner inoculated the boy with pus from a cup of blisters without knowing with certainty what would happen. The cool experiment, ethically questionable by today’s standards, seemed to work. The boy did not develop cups.
Jenner started vaccinating people in his house on Sundays. Within 20 years, the cup vaccine had saved millions of lives. This deadly disease was completely eradicated in 1979.[2]
8 Removing the pancreas in dogs sheds light on diabetes treatment
Diabetes was in its serious form a terrible disease that often affected children. Patients exhibited excess sugar through urine, lost weight, fell into a coma and eventually died.
Originally, the body’s inability to treat carbohydrates were assumed to be a liver or gastric disease. German researchers Oskar Minkowski and Josef von Mehring discovered in 1889 that dogs that had their pancreas removed immediately became diabetic and died shortly afterwards. This led to the conclusion that it was the pancreas that produced the substance that was important to prevent diabetes.
Several attempts were made in the early 20th century to produce pancreas extracts that could lower blood glucose, but it turned out to be challenging. In 1922, Fredrick Banting and Charles Best injected a pancreatic extract in the body of a 13-year-old boy on the brink of death from diabetes. Although the first attempt did not work, later injections showed a remarkable improvement and the boy recovered. The revolutionary discovery of insulin has paved the way for the next generation of research into diabetes.[2]
7 A woman’s cells helped finetune cardboard stroking
George Nicholas Papanicolaou is best known for creating the Papanicolaou test, commonly known as the cardboard, which helps with the early detection of cervical cancer. Researchers estimate that almost 100 women died of cervical cancer every day in the United States in the early 20th century. Cervical cancer grows stealthily and slowly. When the symptoms appear, the cancer has often spread to the lungs, bones or liver. The women become jaundice, coughing blood, suffering fractures and then dies.
When George Papanicolaou discovered a way of extracting vaginal fluid from guinea pigs to determine the animal’s health and reproductive status, he wondered if this could work with humans. His wife Mary was willing to become his topic of testing and gave 7600 samples over 21 years. Papanicolaou collaborated with Dr. Herbert Traut to show that normal and abnormal smear taken from the cervix and the vagina could be studied under the microscope and classified properly.
In 1960, the American Medical Association began to recommend that women be screened with the cardboard test. The simple procedure quickly became the gold standard in testing for cervical cancer and resulted in a significant decrease in deaths related to cervical cancer.[4]
6 From cathodes light rays to x -rays
In 1895, the German scientist Wilhelm Röntgen tried to decide whether cathodes’ rays could pass through glass. While working in his laboratory, he noticed a glow that projected on a nearby screen when the cathode tube was covered. When Röntgen put his hand in front of the tube, he was surprised to see his bones in the image projected on the screen. Through experimentation, he found that the light could pass through most fabrics, but leave shadows of solid objects.
Röntgen called them X -rays. He also found that radiographs could pass through the human body and make the bones visible. In a short time, the clinical use of x -rays flourished. Within a year, X -rays were used to locate fractures, kidney stones and swallowed objects. Röntgen was awarded the first Nobel Prize for Physics in 1901.[5]
5 Blood thinner discovery tied to bleeding cattle
In 1933, a farmer appeared in a laboratory at the University of Wisconsin in Madison with a milk jug full of blood, a dead cow and a pile of mold hay. Several of the farmer’s cows had died of internal bleeding after eating the moldy hay.
Biochemistry professor Karl Paul Link and his students assistant recognized the signs of sweet clover disease that develops when cattle eat wet, spoiled clover hay. In 1939, link and his team isolated a connection in the hay that prevented cow blood from coagulating. The researchers recognized the potential for an anti-coagulator to prevent dangerous blood clots in humans.
After years of research, Warfarin was first launched on the market in 1948, but only as rat poisoning. Links Team developed a water -soluble version that was approved for human use in 1954. Warfarin became a widely prescribed blood thinner that helped millions of patients by lowering the risk of heart attack and stroke.[6]
4 Prevention of pregnancy with a vegetable?
In the middle of the 20th century, the quest for safe and affordable oral birth control was underway. Margaret singer, an avid supporter of women’s rights, ran the research and development of one of the most effective medical breakthroughs of the 20th century – the pill. The lion’s share of the research financing was provided by Katharine Dexter McCormick, singer’s close partner and supporter of women’s rights.
When the Russel marker discovered that generations of Mexican women had eaten a particular wild Yam – Barbasco -Rod – for birth control, the research for the pill became possible. Dr. Gregory Pincus extracted progestin from Yams and combined it with estrogen in the right proportion to create pills.
The first oral contraception was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 1960. Since then, 300 million women around the world have used the pill safely to achieve reproductive freedom.[7]
3 Discover penicillin from a moldy bowl
In 1928, Scottish doctor Alexander Fleming Influenza examined in his laboratory. After returning from a month long vacation, Fleming discovered that a culture of the bacteria Staphylococcus aureusAs he studied, had been destroyed by a form that grew in the Petri bowl.
The form, which was categorized as the genus Penicillium, was deadly to the bacteria. Fleming discovered that the form could kill many bacteria causing infections in humans and animals. This led to the discovery of the first antibiotic, penicillin. For his work, which has saved countless life, Alexander Fleming was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1945. [8]
2 Incorrect part = medical breakthrough
A pacemaker is a small, battery -powered device that regulates a slow or irregular heartbeat by sending electrical impulses to the heart. In the 1950s, William Greatbatch worked on an oscillator to detect heart sounds. Since he was wrongly overall the contrast of installing a resistance with the wrong resistance on the device, it began to emit a stable electric pulse.
Greatbatch realized that the little unit could regulate the human heart. After two years of refinement, the first pacemaker was implanted in humans in 1960. Greatbatch also invented a corrosion -free lithium battery to operate the pacemaker. Greatbatch was a big inventor who said, “Nine things out of 10 don’t work. The 10th will pay for the other nine.” From his death in 2011, Greatbatch had been awarded 325 patents.[9]
1 Organ Transplant process because of understanding of immune response
Organ transplants save millions of lives all over the world. In the 1950s, doctors fought successfully to transplant a kidney. These early patients started with a good recovery, but soon bent.
In Britain, Peter Medawar had studied the subject of rejection of bodies. Based on his experience as a wartime surgeon, Medawar concluded that the body’s rejection of skin transplants from another person – a foreign tissue – was actually an immune response. This opened the possibility of organ transplantation between genetically non-related patients using immunosuppressants. At this time, a successful kidney transplant had been performed between monozygous twins by Joseph Murray. As identical twins, the organ did not seem foreign to the patient’s body, which did not reject it.
Medawar’s discovery made organ transplants possible for genetically non-related patients. The first kidney transplant between genetically non-related patients was performed using immunosuppression in 1963. Liver, heart and pancreatic transplants were performed successfully in the late 1960s.[10]
