(Boris Zerwann, 123rf)
My typical article describes a health problem and outlines some things you can do about it. This article is very different. I want to discuss a unique form of American influence in the world.
As you read this, people beyond our shores are putting on their jeans to attend a baseball or basketball game, to take in a bluegrass or jazz performance, to watch a Hollywood blockbuster, or to grab a bite at McDonald’s or Kentucky Fried Chicken. These forms of American influence are very obviously visible.
The influence of American healthcare innovation, on the other hand, is not as obvious to most people, and usually goes unremarked. Yet, this innovation has the same global reach as the above examples, with life-enhancing and sometimes life-saving benefits. As an American healthcare provider, this is a source of pride for me. After considering a small number of illustrative examples, I hope it becomes a source of pride for you as well.
A free gift of vision
In 1785, our young country’s ambassador to France was Benjamin Franklin. When looking across a table in a diplomatic meeting, he needed glasses to help his distance vision. When referring to documents at such meetings, he needed a second set of glasses for near vision. Constantly switching glasses during these important meetings disturbed the flow of Franklin’s diplomatic work. To improve matters, Franklin invented the bifocal lens.
Franklin never patented his invention. He intended his idea to be available for the benefit of the world’s people, as it has been for generations.
Life blood
Somewhere in the world today, people who would otherwise perish from serious injury or illness are being saved thanks to a transfusion of blood or plasma.
In 1940, Dr. Charles Drew of Howard University organized the first military blood bank. Prior to this, he was responsible for the first bloodmobile as well as innovative techniques for the preservation of blood and plasma.
Dr. Drew’s work was made possible by the discovery of the ABO blood groups in 1900. Credit for this discovery goes to Dr. Karl Landsteiner, born in Austria. As an adult, Dr. Landsteiner emigrated to the United States, becoming an American citizen in 1929.
It’s not always technology
Not all health care innovations involve the development of a new drug or the invention of a new device. They are often the result of new awareness of how to use the natural gifts of human senses, hands, and minds. Many of America’s health care innovations are in this low-tech or non-tech arena. Consider a few examples.
Rapid diagnosis of abdominal pain can be crucial in deciding how to deal with the patient. American surgeon Dr. Charles McBurney found a point in the right lower abdomen that quickly identifies acute appendicitis. He described the method of finding and using this point in an 1889 publication. Today, McBurney’s point is still used by the world’s doctors.
New York anesthesiologist Dr. Virginia Apgar became concerned with the mortality rate of newborns during the first 24 hours of life. She developed a quick way of assessing the newborn’s health status. What we now know as the Apgar score was developed in 1953.
When a Commander in Chief suffers from severe chronic pain, reducing this pain without mind-dulling drugs is a matter of national security. American physician Dr. Janet Travell developed innovative methods to relieve pain by treating active nodules of painful tissue known as myofascial trigger points. She began this work in the 1940s and continued until her death in 1997. In 1961, Dr. Travell became the personal physician to President John F. Kennedy. His successor Lyndon B. Johnson retained Dr. Travell in that position. Today, the treatment of myofascial trigger points is common in many countries.
Dr. Travell’s work was paralleled by the career of American chiropractor Dr. Raymond Nimmo, who developed the hands-on method he named Receptor Tonus technique. This technique addresses the same myofascial trigger points investigated by Dr. Travell. Nimmo probably began developing his technique in the 1930s and began actively teaching by the 1950s. Today, this and similar techniques are often used along with vertebral adjustments and other chiropractic techniques.
The chiropractic profession was founded in Davenport, Iowa in 1895. It was a controversial profession then and in Dr. Nimmo’s time. Today, however, chiropractic practitioners and colleges can be found on all six inhabited continents.
The few and the new
That the United States has always been a powerhouse of innovation in all areas including health care is – and should be – a source of pride. Considering how few Americans there are in the world, and how little time we have been a presence in that world, our contributions seem all the more impressive.
Consider this: In Benjamin Franklin’s time, fewer than 1% of the people in the world were American. Today, it is still only some 5%. The fact that we have been a nation since 1776 – 248 years – is also worthy of comment. Some European countries such as Britain, Spain, and France were already centuries old at our founding. Ancient civilizations such as those in India, China, and Egypt were already millennia old in 1776.
As few and as new as we Americans are, our numerous healthcare innovations help millions every day in every corner of the world.
About the Author
While serving as a medical specialist (MOS 91-B) in the U.S. Army Reserve, Dr. Masarsky earned his Doctor of Chiropractic degree from New York Chiropractic College in 1981. He is in the private practice of chiropractic in the Virginia suburbs of Washington DC with his wife and partner, Dr. Marion Todres-Masarsky. Visit his practice’s website: www.viennachiropractic.com.
