There are a lot of things I'm grateful for to be born in this generation, not neglecting the sacrifices our ancestors faced and the knowledge gathered over the years for us to enjoy the easy life we do today, and one major part is in the area of medicine, in Africa for instance, the mortality rate of mother and child during childbirth was high, also many children died due to illnesses that we can easily be prescribed drugs to take and rest and within few days, we've regained our full health, it wasn't so easy in the past, illnesses like malaria has caused a great death toll before medicines were researched and provided.

My grandmother's story is a significant case of how bad the health system was, imagine having to go through 16 pregnancies and delivery, and losing ten children at their infant stage, the worst was that they never had any diagnosis as to the cause of the infant's death, as they rather believed in supernatural causes than facts, looking back to how far medical sector and researchers have come, there are many reasons why my grandma would have gone through such tragic losses, it could be sickle cell-related or rhesus incompatibility, I'm not a medical expert so I can't say, but these advancements in researches and technology today already has me guessing the causes and if it were now, I'm sure she won't have to go through that many loss of her children, thank God six still survived out of all.

What about the way surgeries were done? Even with the current advancement in medicine and technology, many are still afraid of being operated on, I remember a church member giving testimony at my local church on how she almost lost her life for the fear of surgery, but after some orientation about the procedures and how safe it was also her chances of survival before she finally conceded and now happy it was successful as she is completely healed of the sickness she suffered. Then I imagined how such a person would have been if she had been born in those days, I bet she would have given up on her health and life because of the primitive way surgeries were performed in the past, there was nothing like sterilization, antisepsis, not even anesthesia, and the patient's mortality rate was also high, that is even after having the mind to go through the horrendous experience

Rather than give anesthesia, the doctors have assistance that holds the patients down while the surgery is being performed, indeed, operations were extremely painful, and the surgeon must proceed as fast as he could. The underlying factor of speed was extremely essential and some surgeons gained a lot of reputation due to the duration they took to conduct an operation such as an amputation of limbs, which would take only a few minutes.

Other challenges were infection viral solutions and remedies were not available then, so people infected with the virus were most likely to die, and post-operative infections were rampant and usually deadly as well, According to the stories from the past, The surgeons used to wear their usual everyday clothes on the operation theater, their instruments were not washed and they reused the bandages of previous patients. This was indeed a horrendous time in medicine.

Gender And Racial Bias

Education and practice of women in the field of medicine were limited to a few until the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth one. This resulted in a male-dominated field.
Several diseases and illnesses affecting women were referred to as “hysterical”, meaning they were unreal and just complaints. The approaches used in managing hysteria could be from ridiculous such as vibrator treatment to inhuman measures that were implemented like removal of the womb or confining the patient in an asylum. Overall pain’s perception was distorted and very little attention was paid to women’s pain which is also a bias that medicine retains even in the contemporary world.

In the past, there were also misconceptions about race, for instance, the perception that the blacks had thin skin or felt less pain. And were even used as lab rats, although some of the unethical practices led to the innovations that are of great benefit to the society today, nevertheless, the said concept shows that the end does not always justify the means. Thus, the rights and dignity of human beings in these cases cannot be violated on the pretext of benefit to their respective societies. The basic guiding principles of medical ethics in the contemporary world include aspects like adequately informed consent, as well as fairness or justice regarding the distribution of benefits as well as risks.

The standards of today’s civilization would not accept many of the historical procedures in the society. For instance,
Surgery without anesthesia and without washing instruments. It is also worth remembering that performing experiments on subjects without their consent is both, unlawful and immoral. It is also important not to prejudice patients on grounds of gender or race as this is unethical as well as unlawful in most of the time.

However, it's important to note that while we've made significant progress, some disparities persist in modern medicine, the female patients still receive less analgesia than male patients indicating that male pain is considered more urgent than that experienced by females.

It is important to note that, although many modern medical procedures stem from historical practices, the latter can hardly be considered ethical for the most part. With the focus on gender and race, medical history enlightens the patient about the necessity of ethical thoughts on scientific progress.

Contemporary medicine tries not to repeat these misdeeds, focusing on patient’s rights, voluntary consent, and equal treatment with females and non-whites. However, all is not lost and imbalance is not completely eliminated from present society and therefore to use a health context, bias is still present and requires constant scrutiny in order to avoid inequitable or unethical treatment of patients.

This post is inspired by the #julyinleo monthly topics Check it out and get daily topics ideas to write on.

Images used are gotten from canva

Thank you for reading.❤❤