This article provides a brief history of the healthcare industry and discusses major world events that have influenced and shaped the healthcare industry as it stands today. This article briefly traces the global history of health care from antiquity through the colonial era to the present day. This article also discusses various ideologies that have dictated the course of global health and defined the trend towards globalization in the health sector.
Home remedies:
The house has long been the champion of health care for ancient human beings, as for much of the history of human civilization, everything from birth to illness was managed by experts within its own home. A home remedy is a treatment to cure an illness or condition that uses certain common spices, vegetables, or other items. Home remedies may or may not have medicinal properties that treat or cure the disease in question. Health care began as a purely reactionary medical practice, in which people learned the medicinal properties of plants through trial and error, and then passed that knowledge on to others. Although there is no record of when plants were first used for medicinal purposes (herbalism), the use of plants as healing agents is a long-standing practice.
Traditional health care:
Over time, through the emulation of wildlife behavior, a base of medicinal knowledge developed and was passed down between generations. Humans have long recorded their secrets for curing disease, but disease has not always been well understood. Medical knowledge in the ancient world was accumulated over centuries of experiments and experiments – an exercise in trial, error and success, the result of which began to be recorded in the second millennium BC. It then became a subject of extensive study by many different cultures. , including Persian, Egyptian, Greco-Roman, Indian and Chinese cultures.
Ancient pharmacology and medical practitioners:
Ancient health care providers gained in-depth knowledge of local flora and devised the principles and practice of ancient pharmacology. One of the oldest and most extensive examples comes from Mesopotamia known as the “Treatise on Medical Diagnosis and Prognosis”, where about forty tablets were composed of prescriptions and treatises describing treatments based on rational observations from the body.
As the tribal culture specialized in specific castes, shamans and apothecaries performed the “niche occupation” of healing. Mesopotamian doctors, like many ancient and indigenous peoples, were often shamanic and used charms and spells to treat the patient’s illness, but in many societies there were specialists in herbal remedies, called “doctors”. because of their rational medical knowledge.
Technological, chemical and biological advances:
In the 19th century, many technological, chemical and biological advances gave doctors the means to better understand, diagnose and treat diseases. Discoveries included anesthetics, syringes, antiseptics, x-rays and penicillin. Around the turn of the 20th century, modern health care began to evolve. Physicians began to initiate prepaid arrangements for their services, foreshadowing the field of medical insurance and administration that is in place today.
Understanding the intended and unintended consequences triggered by global health interventions requires examining continuities and divergences from the past. Now let’s talk about some phases of healthcare history that have had an everlasting impact on the modern shape of the modern healthcare industry.
Impact of Colonialism on Health Care:
The advent of infectious diseases and tropical medicine was a direct consequence of colonialism in the 19th and early 20th century which drove the evolution of public health in the British colonies for disease prevention. Infectious diseases have a huge effect on health, through the transfer of new diseases. Urbanization and increasing population densities have made indigenous peoples vulnerable to incoming diseases. National governments have started working to protect their citizens from external threats, including infectious diseases. This has resulted in the development of surveillance systems to respond to outbreaks and the establishment of health systems for disease control. This has given rise to the development of new trends in medical systems and the shift from surveys to microscopic studies in medicine, which has led to enormous advances in vaccinations, preventions and treatments.
Impact of the therapeutic revolution:
In the early 19th century, the focus of medical research shifted from generalized pathology to localized pathology regarding the physiology and transmission of disease. This transition, known as the “therapeutic revolution”, occurred during the 20th century when research focused on specific diseases. The therapeutic revolution is generally understood as the moment when medicine began to work. This led to the increasing effectiveness of the drug. Pasteur, the father of germ theory, unraveled the mysteries of many diseases and contributed to the development of the first vaccines. He debunked the widely accepted myth of spontaneous generation and paved the way for modern biology and biochemistry, the therapeutic revolution improved medicine and vaccine development. There have been great advances in diseases such as leprosy, anthrax, tuberculosis, plague and malaria. The therapeutic revolution created a new understanding of disease and started the trajectory of Western biomedicine and sparked the trend of globalization of medicine.
Impact of eradication campaigns:
The most aggressive effort against malaria has been the Global Malaria Eradication Program. This program was started by the World Health Organization in 1955 and relied on the drug chloroquine for treating infected people and the chemical DDT for mosquito control. Smallpox was the first disease to be eradicated thanks to the success of the smallpox eradication program. Smallpox eradication efforts began in 1967, the last endemic case appeared in 1977, and eradication was declared in May 1980. 20th century eradication campaigns reduced diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis in industrialized countries, but these diseases continue to haunt developing countries. countries. Despite more than 100 years of control efforts, malaria continues to cause large numbers of child deaths in developing countries. Eradication campaigns have made medical professionals aware of their vulnerability, despite modern developments and technology.
Impact of the Primary Health Care Movement:
The perceived failure of post-war disease eradication and infrastructure development led to the realization that providing medical care was only a limited part of improving health and social conditions and that non-health sector services were essential to the health and well-being of the population. This created interest in primary health care in the 1970s realizing that health involves much more than the health sector alone can achieve and called on governments to develop national plans for the infrastructure of care primary health. The primary health care movement was fueled by the desire to build basic health care services from the ground up. Countries like China and the Soviet Union promoted different models from those of the United States and Western medicine. Health care has been promoted by organizations such as the World Health Organization and the World Health Assembly. The International Conference on Primary Health Care in 1978 was a milestone in the movement. The conference brought together delegates from over 130 governments.
Impact of the development movement:
The health care development movement coincided with the post-World War II era and was centered on the belief that increased economic development would benefit the whole world, despite any inequalities that might result. The ideology of development held both the implicit and explicit goal of a modern globalized world that left behind ancient philosophies in pursuit of economic progress.
Neoliberalism, a market-oriented approach to economic and social policies, argued that aggregate economic growth would benefit most of the poor as well as a wealthier minority in developing countries, and introduced the “free market as a better tool for growth than government intervention. . Structural adjustment policies emphasize market allocation of resources, reduction of public sector spending, liberalization, deregulation and privatization. These specific growth-oriented policies are believed to have failed to improve the living standards and health status of the poor.
Globalization of the health industry:
The notion of a global healthcare industry is a recent phenomenon and although the modern healthcare industry is going global day by day, but because healthcare has always traditionally been viewed as a local, specific industry In each country, the practices and development of healthcare as an industry across countries vary. In each country, the health industry has its own history and its own cycle of evolution. Today, globalization of healthcare auxiliary industries, recent technological developments and standardization of various aspects of the industry are fueling the trend of globalization of healthcare industry.
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Creation date Monday, January 14, 2013 Hits 25719