History of Medicine
Introduction
The field of medicine is well-entrenched supremely, a high prestige profession, framed in a body of relative independence, science of self-directing, specialists, and practices. The book Blood and Gut is a historical accounting of how medicine, knowledge of science, and advancing technology changes our thoughts and health treatment and illness from its unpleasant and horrific beginnings to become the refined and multimillion-dollar company we have. Roy Porter, the author of Blood and Gut book, examines the conflict fought between diseases and physicians on the battleground from the ancient period to the present (Marantz 1). The author explores a variety of ingenious methods application in attempting to overcome illnesses through ages. Porter’s book organization is divided into three parts: the first part is the disease, the second is the patient, and the last one is the doctors. The major transmogrification occurs around significant advancement in our understanding of science concepts, especially our familiarity with the human body. This paper examines how the history of the disease can be seen from these two completely different viewpoints.
Body
Porter identifies that the advancing and civilization of the human species are the cause of the pandemic disease outbreak to battle with us in chapter one, “Disease.” The chapter is written in view that illness characteristics are accounted for the living condition of people at that period (Marantz 1). Agriculture brought close conduct of animals and their parasites. There is a transfer of pathogens that belong to animals to man, and animal disease mutated into humans. Industrialization came with working ailments of workers who provided labour in factories and lived in too dirt conditions. Massive epidemic erupted, such as smallpox illness killed a larger population of infected individuals and was spread from one nation to another. An average of three people died out of ten when affected with smallpox. The vaccine for the deadly smallpox disease was identified, and many lives have been saved through the process.
Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is the current infectious pandemic disease caused by a coronavirus that has been newly discovered. The virus was first detected in Wuhan’s city in China in December 2019 without a known cause and has spread all over the world. The pandemic has affected more than thirty million people, and more than one million individuals have died from the epidemic worldwide (Liu et al. 1). There is a significant easy spread of disease from one person to another internationally at the same time. The coronavirus’s primary spread is through saliva droplets or nose discharge when the affected person sneezes or coughs. The prevention measures of coronavirus are; wearing a mask, constant sanitization, and avoiding crowded places. Containing the virus is becoming difficult as no treatment and vaccine have been identified to stop the disease. There is a lot of research being done to determine the control of the coronavirus disease pandemic.
Conclusion
In summary, the history of the disease can be seen from two different viewpoints. Roy Porter, the author of Blood and Guts, examines that disease originates from human advancement and civilization in agriculture and industrialization. There is a lot of disease spreading which claims many lives. Disease such as smallpox contributed to the decimation of the population until when the vaccine was identified. The coronavirus originates from no apparent cause; hence, this brings a different view of the disease’s history, as shown above.