Modern Treatments of Disease

Drug Development and Safety:

Many people followed herbal remedies for years before the discoveries of new and improved medical theories and antibiotics/drugs. There were many contibutions from ancient traders, who in their travels may have assisted the spread of medical knowledge. For example, when the British doctors went to visit foreign doctors, it gave them some hope for making a change in medicine and improving it.

Folk medicines were the only available treatments until recent times. Drug discovery and development started ti fikkiw scientific techniques in the late 1800s. From then on, more and more drugs were discovered, tested, and synthesized in large-scale manufacturing plants, as opposed to the extraction of drug products from natural sources in relatively small batch quantities.

After WW1, the modern pharmaceutical industry came into being, and drug discovery and development following scientific principles was firmly established. Although pharmaceutical drugs are widely used worldwide nowadays, many ethnic cultures have retained their own folk medicines. In certain instances, these folk medicines exist side by side and are complemented by pharmaceutical drugs.

Drug discovery and development in the middle ages

The middle ages, from around AD 400 to 1500, witnessed the decline of the Roman influence. This was also the time when plagues scourged many parts of Europe. Diseases such as bubonic plague, leprosy, smallpox, tuberculosis, and scabies were amoung the many that needed to have treatments. Many millions of people succumbed to these diseases.

Foundation of current drug discovery and development

The Renaissance period laid the foundation for scientific thoughts in medicinal preparations and medical treatments. There were many advances made in anatomy, phsiology, surgery, and medical treatments, including public health care, hygiene and sanitation

Smallpox

In 1796, Edward Jenner successfully experimented with smallpox inoculations. He had heard that people who worked with cattle had caught cowpox, but consequently, due to this, didn't catch smallpox, which was much more harmful. He inoculated a boy, in 1796, with cowpox, and…