Local Community Health Care Issues
The news articles summarized in this paper are dedicated to the way medicine has changed in the last two centuries, focusing especially on the most important developments and inventions that led to these changes. First of all, it is necessary to state that the way people lived 200 years ago and the way they do now just cannot be compared, as everything was different. Even 100 years ago the diseases that are now the most frightening for people were just non-existent, while the ones that then were the reason thousands and millions of people died are today just a history.
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So, what are the major points, in which the situation changed and is there really a significant progress? The fact that the average life expectancy in America increased from 40 to 76.7 is definitely a sign of a positive trend (Malugani, 1999). Given this twofold rise, it is possible to state that our health industry is developing in the right direction.
It was possible to achieve such level due to several factors. First, vaccinations became one of the most important steps in diseases prevention. Owing to their introduction it was possible to overcome terrible pandemics and completely erase many diseases from our life. Along with vaccinations, there were discovered effective ways of cleaning water and disposing wastes. In this way, such diseases as cholera were fought and defeated.
One of the most important inventions was the one made by Louis Pasteur. His findings in the end of 1800’s changed the whole way of people’s life (Riegelman, 2010). Owing to it, there appeared a possibility to process products in a way that allowed people to preserve products within longer periods of time. Thus, spreading of a great number of infections could be prevented.
Introduction of antibiotics in 1940s was also extremely important in the history of medicine. A lot of diseases that were considered incurable before have been from then on successfully battled. Millions of people received a chance to live, which was a definite step into more successful future. The quality of air and overall environment is also being constantly improved, although this task is getting more and more complicated due to inventions in other spheres of life, which result in pollution and emission of detrimental agents. There also developed such problems as resistant bacteria, which can survive despite the measures that are taken and once were effective. This creates new challenges, but if we consider the progress rate that we witnessed within the time described in the articles, it becomes clear that these problems are going to be solved as well.
References
Malugani, M. (1999). Great Achievements. How Public Health has changed over the Century. Retrieved on October 26, 2011 from http://www.nurseweek.com/features/99-12/public.html
Riegelman R.K. (2010). Public Health 101: Healthy People-Healthy Populations. Sudbury, MA: Jones & Bartlett
