This is a continuation from a previous post, Neolithic Trepanation ( http://random-twaddle.blogspot.com/2015/02/neolithic-trepanation.html ), as that was the earliest, most ancient medical practice that we are currently aware of.

Starting somewhere around 1500 to 700 B.C., the ancient Egyptians were known to have several advances during that time frame, due to all of those events concerning mummification. I suppose that would help familiarize some of the people with human anatomy, now that I think about it.

Anyway, around 420 B.C. diagnostics came into the picture, thanks to a guy named Hippocrates. Some folks call him "the father of modern medicine" because he tried to take most of the boogy-boogy out of the health field and started introducing that weird stuff we refer to as science; ha-ha!

After the year 1000, the Arab world had some advances, as well, and started working more in the field of herbal cures and/or remedies from plants, etc. I suppose you could say that it was the beginning of pharmacists?

I'll skip through a few years and head right into the first known vaccination. In 1796, a British scientist developed a vaccine for smallpox. Yeah, that was definitely a big deal. His name was Edward Jenner.

After doing a bit of research, I think the first blood transfer between humans was around 1818. Some British obstetrician named James Blundell did this by way of a syringe. Now, for all I know, blood transfusions (and organ transplants) may have occurred way before that, but lets not talk about ancient alien experiments today, okay? LOL!

In 1846, practical anesthesia came into use. Not long after, in 1865, an antiseptic began being used (yeah, one that wasn't whiskey). In 1901, 4 major blood types were identified, which helped make blood transfusions more successful. In 1954, the first successful organ transplant (a kidney) was performed. Of course, the medical advances in the 20th century steadily increased as time went on. Nowadays, the advances are amazing and we even have robotic surgery advancements, etc.

Well, these were just a few interesting tidbits that I thought I'd share with the community today; cheers!

Image Credit: It is in the Public Domain and is not under copyright protection.

---End of Post "Early Medical Advances"