Medical treatment throughout history

Treatment of wounds At present, we have multiple ways to treat wounds depending on the severity, the specific causes of the wounds, and other factors that indicate the best fitting treatment for the specific case. In old times, there were a few known options, but nonetheless, still, options that worked to some extent. One of the first medical manuscripts dates back to 2200 BC and is a clay tablet that describes three gestures of healing. First washing of the wound, making a plaster for the wound, and lastly, bandaging the wound. The Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans were quite advanced at treating wounds. The Egyptians might have been the first people who used adhesive bandages for wounds and were the first to apply honey to wounds. Honey is quite an effective wound dressing, which is also used in specific cases today due to its antibacterial properties to prevent infection. They also painted wounds with a green color that often contained copper, which has some properties to fight bacteria. Today we have many different options to treat different kinds of wounds, but in a way still rely on some of the old concepts: cleaning the wound, using some gels or ointments to prevent infection, and dressing the wound to facilitate healing. Some of the more advanced treatments for wounds include collagen dressings, anti-microbial dressings, platelet-rich plasma, silver products, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, etc. They are usually indicated for specific types of wounds. An example of this is an autologous combined leukocyte and platelet-rich fibrin patch, which has been proven to treat diabetic foot ulcers more efficiently (https://3cpatch.com/). Back in time, you had to use more generic treatments such as honey instead of having specific treatments for very specific types of wounds. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3601883/ Pain relief In this day and age, you have plenty of options if you are in pain, and those vary according to the type of pain you are experiencing, from lesser pain such as headaches to overwhelming pain. Fortunately, nowadays, science and technology have evolved to provide treatment solutions for most types of pain that we might experience during our lifetime. Back in time, there were generally fewer options as medicine was still in its early days and our ancestors lack the technological advancements that we are enjoying today. This can be seen in ancient Egypt, Greece, and the Roman empire. The Egyptians used opium-based compounds to help people sleep, relieve pain, and even calm down children. The treatments were often quite effective regarding pain treatment but often resulted in different side effects, and addiction as people got treated more and more often. The Greeks used willow bark for pain relief. In most cases, it was chewed to help relieve the pain. Today we know that willow bark contains salicylates which is an ingredient for aspirin. Back then, many natural plants, materials, and resources were used directly in their natural form, as there were limited methods to process them. Their healing properties were identified by chance and usually through a trial and error process. Nowadays, we are able to look at things such as willow bark and investigate why it worked and if it worked back in time. Because we are able to single out specific compounds and ingredients, we have a much better understanding of how to treat medical problems and therefore become more efficient in our treatments and advance our society. https://www.history.com/topics/crime/history-of-heroin-morphine-and-opiates#:~:text=Opium%20use%20in%20ancient%20Egypt,even%20to%20calm%20crying%20children