October’s Thoughts: 100 Years: What’s Changed?

By Jesse Moss Jr., MD

This is the 100th year celebration of San Antonio Medicine! Having been around for 100 years, San Antonio Medicine has provided articles written by physicians about public health policy, medical inventions and interventions, patient care, economic and legislative impacts on the practice of medicine. Now, a few specific events that happened exactly 100 years ago—in 1911!

Let me begin with birthdays. President Ronald Reagan and Vice-president Hubert H. Humphrey were born in 1911, along with Jean Harlow, Lucille Ball, Ginger Rogers, Vincent Price, Roy Rogers, Robert Taylor, and playwright Tennessee Williams. Several noteworthy events took place precisely one hundred years ago: William Howard Taft was president of the United States; Dwight D. Eisenhower entered the U. S. Military Academy at West Point, NY; and, Chanel N°5 was created that year.

Relationships between the U. S. and Mexico began to sour that year: border incidents of riots, robberies and murders of U. S. citizens began to escalate. Here, the following were common sights: the milkman delivered milk and the iceman delivered ice (the icebox, forerunner of our refrigerator, was not yet electrical). Less than one-half of all Americans had telephones. Toilets that flushed were not yet household items. Pneumonia was better known as “the old man’s friend”. In England, one out of every seven workers was employed as a servant, whereas the percentage in the U. S. was slightly less. One dozen oranges, in season, cost 30¢. It was a wonderful surprise for children to receive oranges in their Christmas stockings, as tropical fruit was rare and difficult to obtain during the winter.

The new publications that began in 1911 included The American Journal of Public Health and The Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine. Sir William Osler, MD, CM, in The Canadian Medical Association Journal described what is now known as ischemic heart condition and was able to relate the influence of lifestyle with the risk. William Summerskill, executive editor of the British journal The Lancet, was amazed at how similar our concerns of today were to those of 1911, although the articles did not have the same type of scientific vigor as today’s (Voice of America website: www.voanews.com, New Year In Medicine Fights Off Old Demons). They wrote about the wonderful effects of Salvarsan, simply called #606, on syphilis [by Paul Ehrlich, MD (1854-1915)]—the first scientific treatment of syphilis. Cancer and tuberculosis (TB) were major concerns. Even then, there were great concerns about the ability of medicine to care for the poor, food safety, and the sale of rotten eggs. At that time, medicine was facing uncertainty.

Clearly, medical advances have occurred. Treatments for syphilis have significantly improved and TB is pretty much under control. Hopefully, in a hundred years, doctors will look at our treatment of HIV as being primitive. Cancer is still a major concern: although treatment advances have prolonged the lives of people and provided a greater quality of life, it is still a major cause of significant morbidity and mortality. Food safety, on a variety of different fronts, haunts us today. Inspections of homegrown and imported foods are still a major concern. Caring for the poor, the uninsured and underinsured, and our disenfranchised population is a major problem for medicine today. Economic recession and depression. along with unemployment, are also major concerns. Political uncertainty and the methods used to eliminate recession, depression and unemployment continue to be topics of heated debates. Unfortunately, I do not believe that the debates are honest; and I do not really think they’re focused on the people.

Hopefully, this will stimulate your interest in continuing to read our San Antonio Medicine.