How Medical Heritage Shapes the World of Modern Medicine

What is Medical Heritage?

Medicine, like any other industry, has a rich history that spans centuries, which is what we refer to as medical heritage. It is the legacy that has been passed down from one generation to another, with each story telling a tale of how medical evolution has taken place over the years. But what form does this heritage take?

• Tangible heritage. When you think of old medical books, you are thinking of tangible medical heritage, which encompasses all the physical items that are a part of medical history. So, in addition to books, you also have items such as surgical tools, images, hospital buildings, and even actual pathological specimens. If we can see, hear, or touch it, then it falls into this category.
• Intangible heritage. While physicians did a great job of writing down past medical practices, much of the information they shared was by word of mouth. Take the example of traditional medicine across different regions. Healers did not write down their systems and instead taught them to their apprentices through practice. But it's not just rituals and traditional healing that have been passed down this way. Many medical stories revolving around epidemics and other public health scares exist in people's memories but have yet to make it on paper. So, while your grandparents may have interesting stories about an ailment that plagued them back in the day, other people may not get to hear them.

So, if you think about it, you have likely encountered quite a number of medical heritage forms.

The Importance of this Legacy

Medical stories are quite fascinating. After all, listening to how people would drink bitter herb concoctions for their hurting stomachs is interesting when you compare it to modern-day, where you can easily pop a pill and instantly feel better. But besides entertainment, this medical heritage helps us understand the following:

• The evolution of medicine. How did we get to a point where surgeons can perform surgeries without cutting people open? Where did we get the fantastic idea to protect ourselves from germs? These are some of the interesting findings available in medical heritage. With each book you read and every story you hear, you get to walk down memory lane and trace our steps as we moved from ritualistic healing and embraced scientific discoveries.
• The mistakes we made. Medical history is not without its tragedies. Sometimes, you come across some norms that would make modern doctors and patients shudder at the thought alone. There were periods when people refused to wash their hands because they did not believe in germs. There were eras when some doctors thought that drilling into people's brains could fix bad behavior. From these ethical failures and historical mistakes, we learn a lot about what we should not repeat moving forward, as we can see the results of such questionable decisions.
• The experience of illnesses. Doctors and patients battled many a disease back in the day. Medical heritage goes beyond objective data and delves into the subjective experiences. You get to understand how patients and doctors dealt with different ailments, which gives you a much deeper appreciation of the medical interventions we have today.
• The impact of society. Even now, health is shaped by external influences, such as politics, economics, culture, and global events. And this was the case back in the day. Take military medicine as an example. A look at interventions during the war periods helps you understand just how this field of medicine grew.

The more you uncover medical heritage, the more you realize just how much work went into shaping the medical industry we have today, including the sacrifices that many people made along the way.

The Role of Digitization

A few decades back, historical medical literature was hard to come by unless you went to a library or a medical school. But now, you can access the same materials online, thanks to the large number of archives and libraries that are digitizing these medical sources. Let's have a look at how they are transforming the medical industry:

1. The Digital Texts.

   From books to journals, we have a wide range of medical literature available online, which was previously only accessible in rare book collections and archives. But has this changed anything? Why, yes! With these records, researchers can now:

   • Mine content. The only way to find a trend is to analyze a lot of data. And now, researchers have access to thousands of historical books at the same time that they have access to big data. Combine the two, and you have the perfect system to study trends across the centuries, from disease prevalence to medical terms. And that means that researchers can complete studies faster because they no longer have to manually read every book to determine if it has valuable information in relation to their research questions.
   • Find forgotten knowledge. While some of the medical issues we face today are a mystery, many of them are not, and they are tied to diseases that have existed in the past. But with information dating back centuries, it can be quite hard for medical practitioners to keep track of what worked, especially for a disease that was not very prevalent. Digitizing medical heritage allows practitioners to look for diseases that match specific symptoms, and in some cases, they may come across treatments that were described in a previous era, which can help them find a modern solution to the issue.

   The good news is that these records are open access, such that the general public can also read them. As such, even if you are not a historian or in the medical field, you, too, can get access to the same literature. Perhaps you would like to learn more about Florence Nightingale or are curious about the making of the Hippocratic Oath. With a swift search, you can retrieve these original works and satisfy your curiosity.

2. The Images.

   Did you know that past medical literature also includes images and illustrations? Physicians would often make drawings of human bodies, disease manifestations, and more. And when technology got better, they started taking pictures. So, how do these images play a part in our medical heritage?

   • They show us the previous anatomical understandings. Believe it or not, there was a time when cells were but a theory. In fact, there was an era where physicians mapped out human bodies into humors. It took a while before they discovered organs and understood the inner workings of the human body. And if you would like to see their earlier understandings, you can review their digitized illustrations. You will note a trend from speculative drawings to the more empirical illustrations that we have today.
   • They represent how diseases were perceived. If you had fallen mysteriously ill around the 5th century BC, your community would have likely thought that you were attracting bad omen. That's just how things were. And if you were to look at illustrations from this period, you would see that physicians depicted disease as both a physical and supernatural state of being. Over the centuries, physicians drew and photographed diseases and their accompanying treatments. And this has helped us understand more as to how diagnoses were made because we can see the visual representations of the actual ailments.
   • They let us in on medical tools. Do you know that leeches were once seen as a perfectly acceptable way of healing people? We have truly come a long way. And there is nothing as exciting as looking at the older medical tools and comparing them to what we have today.

   If you are a visual learner, you will appreciate the details in these images.

3. The Recordings.

   Texts and images are excellent ways of uncovering the past. But if you would like a more sensory approach, say hello to video and audio recordings. We will warn you, though, that the quality is unlike the HD films you are used to seeing today, but either way, these recordings allow you to relive historical medical moments. By hearing from both the patients and the practitioners through their oral interviews, lecture recordings, and public health announcements, you get a sense of what medicine was like back in the day. And if you have an interest in surgery, you will be happy to know that there are many films and recordings that cover operating rooms and surgical techniques.

Our Co-Evolution with Medical Heritage

Earlier, we stated that medical heritage allows us to understand the changes in the medical field. But guess what? These changes did not occur in a vacuum. It's not like the medical field changed, and our society remained the same. If anything, it was the changes in our society that propelled the changes in the medical field. How so?

• The link between urbanization and public health. Before industrialization paved the way for urban population density, we were not experiencing diseases like cholera on a large scale. But the more that people lived in close quarters, the more these diseases spread, and the more people died. It was not long before physicians had to put their heads together to determine what was causing these diseases and figure out how to prevent and treat them. They toyed with several theories to explain this, and it was not long before they discovered germs and understood that if people were to stay healthy, they had to practice hygiene. And the leaders in urban centers followed suit by coming up with policies geared at promoting sanitation. That is why you will come across aspects such as disease outbreaks and housing conditions when reviewing old public health reports online.
• The link between ethics and modern medical standards. As we said before, medical practitioners in previous centuries made mistakes. They experimented on people, they tortured their patients, and the list goes on. Truth be told, some of the old asylum records available online are material for endless debates on the line between scientific advancements and morality. But luckily, many of these practices are no longer in place. There came a time when people grew tired of the harsh techniques and started advocating for patient rights and questioning the treatment of mental illness. And human rights groups stepped in and echoed the same. Slowly, the medical standards changed to integrate these ethics, which you can trace by comparing records from previous centuries to what we have now. So, the reason people are now confident to talk about being on medication for mental disorders comes from the courage that other people had to speak up about what was once considered a taboo topic.
• The link between advertisements and medical industry regulation. As medicine evolved and offered better solutions for ailments, marketing companies invested heavily in the industry, especially towards the start of the 20th century. It was quite the norm for a drug company to sell its 'cure' for a disease in the media. And with people eager to be free of diseases and other conditions, they were quick to buy into the ideas sold to them. As you can imagine, it contributed to the rise of consumerism in pharmaceuticals as people were buying drugs left, right, and center. But there was one problem - the lack of regulation. Companies selling 'cures' did not actually have to adhere to any standards to prove their drugs actually worked. Luckily, nations worldwide were quick to combat this problem by setting up food and drug regulations to protect the public.

So, what came first - the medical evolution or the societal issues? We've given you the hint. But you can get the complete answer by doing some digging into old medical literature.