Infographic created by me using an easel.ly template

The beginnings of the 19th and 20th centuries brought medical advancements that have changed the course of history and saved millions of lives thereafter.  Below is an infographic I created detailing the biggest.  Some of the technology that we take for granted, such as the X-ray (1895) and EKG (1903), is only less than 150 years old.  It amazes me to wonder what they did before then!  I can only imagine the lives that were lost due to the simple inability to monitor the skeleton or heart.  This is probably why the mortality rate has decreased so dramatically during the same time frame that these two inventions were created.  In 1900, the mortality rate out of 100,000 people in the U.S. was 2,518.  In 2013, it was only 732.

In 1935 is when a very important advancement was made.  Joseph E. Murray performed the first kidney transplant.  This is important because this organ is the most needed one in the United States.  As of September 2018, over 95 thousand patients were on the waiting list for a kidney.  Kidney dialysis patients are plenty, and with 1935 came a new wave of lives being saved and lifestyles being changed!  Check out my Multi-Media page for an infographic on the top 7 organs needed in the United States.  It will shock you to see how many people are on the waiting list for a heart!

Another medical advancement that is interesting is the first draft of the human genome.  It was published only 18 years ago!  In 2003, however, researchers were finally able to publish a high-quality sequence.  This advancement contributed to society in major ways.  One was that now they were able to compare the human genome to genomes of other organisms such as the mouse, brewer’s yeast, the roundworm, and the fruit fly.  They could more ethically experiment and study which genes are essential for life and which weren’t.