CHAPTER ONE What Is Medical Technology Today doctors use many tools to help people feel better Antibiotics fight infections Blood tests diagnose disease An artificial leg helps a person walk All of these are examples of medical technology Medical technology is the use of science to solve heath problems Before medical technology the world was very different Imagine living with no medical tests machines or medicine Disease was a mystery People did not know why they became sick They did not have tools and medicines to help them feel better Many people died from infections and illnesses Antibiotics 4 Blood Test
Vintage Stethoscope Before the 19th century doctors could not see or hear inside a living body After the patient died doctors could cut open the body and look inside it Yet this did not help doctors diagnose or treat illness in living patients Some of the earliest breakthroughs in medical technology allowed doctors to see and hear parts of the body while the patient was still alive Antique Microscope 55
In 1816 French doctor Rene Laennec invented the stethoscope The stethoscope is a tool that allows doctors to hear a patient’s heart lungs or other sounds inside the body One day Laennec noticed two children sending signals to each other One child scratched the end of a long piece of wood with a pin The other child put her ear to the other end of the wood to hear the scratching Stethoscope 6
Laennec thought the same idea might help him bring the sound of a patient’s heart closer to his ear He made a hollow tube of wood He put one end on his patient’s chest Then he put the other end to his ear Thump Thump Now doctors could gather information about the heart and lungs 7
