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- Denis Giles
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By Maneka Sanjay Gandhi
Imagine a new human mother who has a viral infection. Would any doctor allow her own baby to drink her milk? Of course not. When you drink milk, have you ever thought of the health of the cow that this milk came from?
According to veterinary studies, one of the most common diseases that cattle have is parainfluenza3, a viral disease. The PI3 virus infects the upper respiratory mucosa. While fatalities are rare, they predispose the animal to other recurrent infections. How many cows have you seen with a runny nose? Probably none because no one looks at cows? But if you go to the commercial dairies around India you will see the classic respiratory signs of cough, fever, discharge from nose and eyes, increased respiratory rate and difficult breathing. There is no specific anti-PI3 therapy. Medicines are given for the secondary bacterial infections that follow. All the while, milking goes on.
Does this happen only in India? No, studies done by Reisinger et al. Bakos and Dinter, Abinanti et al. , and Gale and King, confirm the virus in cattle in their own countries. In Japan, Inaba etc. have shown that the virus is widely disseminated among cattle in Japan. These results are not very different from those reported by Hoerlein et al. in the United States and Bakos and Dinter in Sweden.
Now, come to the next step : scientists have found the virus not just in nasal discharges but in milk. In studies done by Inaba, the virus was isolated not only from nasal secretions but also from the milk of naturally infected cattle. At one farm the virus was recovered from milk in 14 of 58 cows (24%), while nasal secretions were positive for virus in 14 of 50 animals (28%). This finding suggests that milk also plays a role as the source of infection. The virus invades the mammary glands, multiplies there and is excreted in milk.
Is the virus zoonotic? Probably. So, when you drink milk, you stand a strong chance of getting your runny nose/fever and cough from it.
Is that the only danger lurking in milk?
Mastitis is an inflammation of the mammary gland and udder tissue, and is a major pandemic disease of dairy cattle. Milk-secreting tissues and various ducts throughout the udder can be damaged by bacterial toxins. Severe acute cases can be fatal, but even in cows that recover there are changes in the secretion of milk from the mammary glands.
Mastitis can be kept away if the milkers use good hygiene, good housing management, and good nutrition to promote cow/buffalo health. Is there a single animal in the dairy industry in India that is kept properly? Inspections of all the dairy nagars (land that has been given to cattle owners for the purpose of providing milk) across India show that cows stand knee deep in slush which is a combination of their own excreta, urine and water from the sewage pipe; most of them have runny noses and fever and almost all have mastitis brought on by bad, fermented, old hay, both used as bedding and food, the humidity and the filthy hands that push and pull at their teats twice a day. Most of them have sores on their teats and bellow with pain during the milking. No dairy inspector has ever been to these cattle sheds, and they are so easily bribed that their money is sent home – the same way as the vets attached to slaughterhouses get their monthly payments. Mastitic cows need specialized handling, Veterinary care and medicines and clean surroundings. This costs the owner too much, so he takes out milk till the day it becomes obvious that there is far too much blood in it. And then he sells the cow for slaughter.
Abroad, the milk is sometimes thrown away when it is discovered to be contaminated with parainfluenza and the bacteria from mastitis. In India we check for neither.
Mastitis is a scourge in every country and there is no vaccine for it. Abroad, entire herds are killed. It has made no difference to the spread of this disease.
The most obvious symptoms of clinical mastitis are abnormalities in the udder, such as swelling, heat, hardness, redness, pain and fever, sunken eyes, diarrhoea and lack of appetite. The milk is watery with flakes, clots, or pus.
The changes in milk constituents are caused by infection-fighting white blood cells attempting to eliminate the infective organisms, which may further be responsible for producing toxins which damage the milk-producing glands within the udder. There are changes in the protein composition in milk, with low quality blood serums leaching into it; casein, an important protein found in healthy milk, is significantly reduced in mastitic cows. An important complication is that casein is closely linked with calcium levels in milk production.
The pH of milk, normally around 6.6, can increase to 6.8 or 6.9 in mastitic cows. The presence of blood enzymes in milk from mastitic cows can affect the taste, and its ability to be made into other dairy products such as cheese or yoghurt.
An important paper, which should be sent to every government division in charge of dairy inspection, is called “Public health hazard due to mastitis in dairy cows “ by K. G Abdel Hameed , G Sender , Korwin-Kossakowska of South Valley University, Qena, Egypt and Polish Academy of Sciences Institute of Genetics and Animal Breeding, Jastrzębiec, Poland.
Milk from cows with mastitis, mixed into bulk milk, enters the food chain and poses a threat to human health. Milk and other dairy products are infected with Staphylococcus aureus and Streptococcus agalactiae – both the most common agents for mastitic infections.
704 mixed milk samples were collected from 275 cows kept in two herds in 2004/2005. One herd was kept very well and the other not so well, but not badly. The animals were milked twice a day and the milk mixed. The quality of milk was found within European standards as per their tests. The samples were analysed for the presence of S. aureus, Str. agalactiae and other mastitis-causing organisms. 16.6% contained S. aureus and 1.4 % contained Str. Agalactiae. 4.7% contained Str. dysgalactiae, 2.9% contained Escherichia coli and 14.7% contained other mastitis-causing organisms. Both herds were afflicted equally by sub-clinical mastitis attributed to S. aureus.
This is good milk. Find a single herd in India that is kept even semi-well.
If the cow has severe clinical mastitis, abnormalities of milk are easily seen and this milk normally would not enter the food chain. But when milk of cows with sub-clinical mastitis, i.e. with no visible changes, is mixed into bulk milk, it enters the food chain and can be dangerous to humans. Milk and other dairy products are frequently infected with S. aureus which cause nausea, vomiting and abdominal cramps, when ingested by humans and are responsible for staphylococcal food poisoning outbreaks [Kluytmans et al. 1997]. These toxins cannot be destroyed by heating or drying [National Mastitis Council 1996]. Str. agalactiae is considered a major cause of elevated Somatic ( pus) cell count (SCC) in milk. As SCC rise because of mastitis, milk quality decreases due to the drop in lactose and casein. In humans, Str. agalactiae has been described as a common reason for invasive infections in babies, but it also causes infections and mortality in adults, specially diabetics, pregnant and post-partum women, and immunocompromised patients [Schuchat 2001, Lerner et al. 1977].
Another public health concern are the antibiotic residues in milk due to extensive use of antibiotics in the treatment and control of the disease. The careless use of antibiotics, often done even without consulting doctors, results in residues in foods which can lead to severe reactions in people allergic to antibiotics and, at low levels, can cause the development of antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria.
In fact, when clinical mastitis is detected, the cow is given an intramammary infusion of antibiotic, and her milk must be kept out of the food supply. Selling milk contaminated with antibiotics can lead the producer abroad to lose his permit. Not so in India where there are no permits to begin with.
Should you be drinking this milk, no matter what label the company has?
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- Denis Giles
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By Maneka Sanjay Gandhi
In an earlier article I talked about the miraculous effects of Panchgavya on crops. Dr K. Natarajan, who has written the book after years of experimenting with it, has also written a chapter on its effects on animals. After the studies on plants, his team started on animals and humans. For those who did not read the previous piece, this is how to make it.
Panchgavya consists of five products from the cow: dung, urine, milk, curd and ghee. Dr Natarajan has added some more ingredients. So this is what his panchgavya recipe is :
Fresh cow dung 5 kg, cow urine 3 litres, cow milk 2 litres, cow ghee ½ kg, cow curd 2 litres, sugarcane juice 3 litres, tender coconut water 3 litres, 12 ripe bananas and toddy, or grape juice, 2 litres. This gets you 20 litres of panchgavya.
Take a wide mouthed mud pot, concrete tank or plastic can. No metal containers. Put in fresh dung and ghee first and mix twice daily for 3 days. On the 4th day add the rest of the ingredients and stir twice daily for 15 days. After the 18th day keep in the shade and cover with a mesh to prevent flies. If you don’t have sugarcane juice, add 500 gms of jaggery dissolved in 3 litres of water. If you don’t have toddy, put 2 litres of tender coconut water in a closed plastic container for 10 days. It will ferment and become toddy. This panchgavya can be kept for six months, and when it becomes thick, water can be added to keep it liquid.
Typically, Dr Natarajan, being a scientist and not an animal welfare person, did his experiments with animals grown for meat and milk, and worked in factory farms that grow these animals commercially.
Pigs were fed panchgavya mixed with drinking water at the rate of 10 ml to 50 ml per pig. They became healthy and disease free and (I do not approve of this) the owners reduced the feed with no effect on their well being. The same things happened for goats and sheep who were given 10-20 ml daily.
Chickens were given 1 ml per bird per day and became disease free. They laid bigger eggs for longer periods, and the weight gain in broilers was impressive. They did not need antibiotics or growth hormones.
Panchgavya was applied daily, mixed with fresh cow dung, in fish ponds. It increased the growth of algae, weeds and small worms, increasing the food for the fish. However, fresh water had to be added at regular intervals to the pond, as the growth of weeds/algae decreased the oxygen available for the fish. In ten months each fish grew to 2-3 kg and the mortality of fingerlings decreased.
According to Dr Natarajan, he did not want to give panchgavya to the cows, as it was part of their own excreta. However, his team mixed it in the feeding trough, with animal feed, and water at the rate of 100 ml per day per cow. The cows became healthier with increased milk which had an increased fat content. Problems, like retained placentas, mastitis and foot and mouth disease, disappeared and the skins of the cows became glossier.
Some farmers spray urea on paddy straw (hay) before storing . These farmers in Tamil Nadu, where storing is known as “staking”, store the paddy straw in layers and spray urea on each layer before putting the next one on, till a height of 10 feet. It is then covered with palm leaves to protect from the rain. Instead of the urea, Natarajan’s team sprayed a 3% solution of panchgavya, layer after layer and allowed the stored hay to ferment. The cows were given a choice of which hay to eat. They always chose the sprayed hay to the unsprayed/ urea sprayed hay. The stored hay can be kept upto a year.
Dr Natarajan has recommended another veterinary product that can be made at home.
Gomati Sangeevi (Herbal antibiotic).
Add 300 grams of fresh neem bark (after discarding the dried outer layer), 200 gms of green leaves of the jackfruit, to 5 litres of water and boil in a mud pot till it is reduced to 2.5 litres. After filtering, the red concoction can be used as oral medication for cattle. Cattle should be given 500 ml at one time on appearance of symptoms and repeated if the symptoms persist. 500 ml as a onetime dose to be given to other animals in the vicinity as a onetime measure. Calves get half the dose.
According to Dr Natarajan panchgavya is an elixir of many microorganisms, bacteria, fungi, proteins, carbohydrates, fats, amino acids, vitamins, enzymes, unknown growth promoting agents, micronutrients, antioxidants and immunity enhancers. When taken orally by animals it stimulates the immune system and produces antibodies, acting like a vaccine. It is especially helpful in digesting and curing constipation.
He has also experimented on dogs but, alas, no findings have been recorded. His number is 09443358379 for anyone who is interested in learning about panchgavya.
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- Denis Giles
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By Maneka Sanjay Gandhi
A recent book I have picked up, from The Other India Bookshop, is a manual on Panchgavya by Dr. K. Natarajan.
Dr. Natarajan has studied the effects of panchgavya for decades and has used it across India to treat plants, animals and human beings. He says that the basic preparation should be fine tuned for maximum efficiency. He has already won the prestigious Srishti award for his bio pesticide (ease of preparation and lack of side effects) and has made excellent immunity boosters for cattle. He has two herbal medicines for diabetes and arthritis.
Panchgavya has come a long way from 1998, when it was innovated by scientists for the first time. Now students have their PhDs and M.Phils for scientific research in "itr". Thousands of farmers use it daily. The manual is extremely interesting. It not only gives detail of what panchgavya is, and how to make it, but it gives the names and details of how it is used in different places all over India, and empirical evidence on the difference it makes immediately to the soil and to the body.
India has gone through a deeply troubled phase in agriculture. For centuries, we ate organic, good, seasonal food and fruit. Then, in 1960 the government was enamoured of the idea of doubling everything overnight. In the “Green Revolution” pesticides and chemicals were introduced and pushed through all the publicity media and scientific institutions. In ten years most of the food we ate had disappeared and was replaced by standardized, low level, unhealthy grains. As the years went on the ground became soaked with chemicals and urea, and had become so thirsty that we started overusing water, and then electricity, simply for irrigation. By 2000 India realized that, while we were importing millions of tonnes of poisons to put on the land, nothing had increased except cancer. The Green Revolution had failed totally and farmers were in despair. Very slowly, farmers started to go back to what they knew best – organic farming. Tiny steps were taken to replace chemical fertilizers, pesticides and fungicides, with organic manure. But nothing was available to replace growth promoting hormones and immunity boosters, and to bring sustained higher productivity. So farmers, and some scientists, started experimenting with medicines mentioned in the Vrikshayurveda, and panchgavya was the result.
Panchgavya for farmers consists of five products from the cow: dung, urine, milk, curd and ghee. These, which when mixed appropriately, have excellent, almost miraculous, results. Dr. Natarajan has added some more ingredients. So, this is what his panchgavya recipe is:
Fresh cow dung, 5 kg; cow urine, 3 litres; cow milk, 2 litres; cow ghee, ½ kg; cow curd, 2 litres; sugarcane juice, 3 litres; tender coconut water, 3 litres; 12 ripe bananas, and toddy or grape juice, 2 litres. This gets you 20 litres of panchgavya.
Take a wide mouthed mud pot, concrete tank, or plastic can. No metal containers. Put fresh dung and ghee in first and mix twice daily for 3 days. On the 4th day add the rest of the ingredients and stir, twice daily, for 15 days. After the 18th day keep in the shade, and cover with a mesh to prevent flies. If you don’t have sugarcane juice add 500 gms of jiggery dissolved in 3 litres of water. If you don’t have toddy, put 2 litres of tender coconut water in a closed plastic container for 10 days. It will ferment and become toddy.
This panchgavya can be kept for six months and, when it becomes thick, water can be added to keep it liquid. It contains all the nutrients necessary for plant growth, and these have been verified by labs and farmers across the country.
Add three litres to every 100 litres of water, filter, and spray it on all crops. It can also be used through drip or flow irrigation.
It should be used to drench seeds in for 20-30 minutes before planting. Then it is sprayed 20 days after planting, and after every 15 days in the pre flower phase, once in 10 days at the flowering stage and once when the pod matures.
This is the effect it has on some fruits (the details of others are given in the book).
Mango: dense flowering fruit every year instead of alternate years, flavour and aroma enhanced.
Lime: flowering round the year, plump fruit with strong aroma. Shelf life extended by 10 days
Guava: bigger, tastier. Shelf life extended by 5 days.
Banana: bunch size becomes uniform and harvesting can be done a month earlier.
Turmeric: yield enhanced by 22% with extra long fingers. Reduced pest and disease.
Jasmine: Continuous flowering throughout the year . Exceptional aroma.
Vegetables: Yield enhanced by 18 % and doubled in cucumber. Extended shelf life and strong flavours.
Paddy: 300 grains per earhead. Harvest advanced by 15 days. Percentage of broken rice reduced during milling. Grain weight increases by 20%.
Panchgavya has been investigated on sugarcane, mustard, groundnut, jowar, bajra, ragi , maize, wheat, sunflower and coconut . In all of these, panchgavya acted as a growth stimulant and pest inhibitor.
Plants sprayed with panchgavya produce bigger leaves, sturdy side shoots from the trunk, and the roots are profuse, dense and go deep, making the plant take the maximum nutrients and water. A thin oily film forms on the leaves and stems, reducing evaporation of water and allowing the plants to withstand long dry periods. Irrigation can be reduced by 30%.
Normally, yield falls when the farmer moves from chemical to organic farming, and this is the main reason why farmers fear the shift. If he uses panchgavya , the yield remains the same, the first year itself. The harvest is advanced by 15 days in all the crops.
Panchgavya increases shelf life, so selling and storing becomes easier.
I would suggest that you cut this out and share the information with the farmers you know. Let them try this out on a small part of their farms and see if it works. If it does, it will definitely make them richer and the consumers of their produce, healthier. Or, try it on your garden and the trees outside your house.
Get the book. Contact Dr. Natarajan at 09443358379.
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- Denis Giles
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By Maneka Sanjay Gandhi
I checked into an ayurvedic centre in Haryana for a week. Clean, spartan and strict, it was the ideal place for me…. Except for the flies. I was covered with oil or mud for the better part of the day and showered three times but it seemed to me that I had become a target for all the flies of the district. No one else seemed to have a problem. But walking, sleeping, being massaged or eating, I was brushing away the House Fly, Musca domestica, and its more ubiquitous cousin the Bush Fly, Musca Vetutissima.
Why do flies sit on humans? It is so energy expensive for them. They are brushed away a thousand times, swatted, hurt, killed. Why don’t they sit on animals, or furniture? (They do sit on animals, but only those that are hurt and cannot defend themselves.) Since the common housefly doesn’t have any interest in sucking blood, (feeding on open wounds is a different story), you think they’d fly away from humans. After all, we’re a lot larger and more intimidating swatters.
The Fly has a very soft, fleshy, sponge-like mouth and when it lands on you and touches your skin, it won't bite, it will suck up secretions on the skin. It is interested in sweat, proteins, carbohydrates, salts, sugars and other chemicals and pieces of dead skin that keep flaking off. This type of fly also gets its nutrients from sitting around the eyes of livestock. It is hard to get it from anywhere else on hairy animals, which is also why they land more often on human skin which is comparatively less hairy.
Here are some reasons why they land on humans:
* They are attracted to carbon dioxide which human beings breathe out.
* They are attracted to the heat of the warm body, to sweat and salt, and the more the person sweats the more flies they attract.
* Flies feed on dead cells and open wounds .
* Oil is an important food for flies . Oily hair is an attractant.
* Less hairy skin gives the fly spaces to vomit. A fly vomits on solid food to liquefy it. The house flies taste with their feet so if there is food on the skin, and space to liquefy it, they will land there.
* Some body-odours are more attractive to flies than others. This is apart from the quantity of carbon dioxide that is emitted.
Houseflies are scavengers .The human body, like some of their favourite food sources -- faeces, food and rotting flesh -- radiates a sense of warmth and nourishment. With a voracious appetite, aided by an excellent sense of smell and a pair of complex eyes that covers half its head, the fly lands on us because it is constantly on the hunt for a warm place to eat, defecate, vomit and lay eggs.
In order to make the area in and around your home a “no fly” zone take basic preventative measures. If you have a dog make sure you do not leave its faeces out in the open, as dog faeces serves as both buffet and egg depository. Don’t leave food out for too long, pay special attention to kitchen utensils and surfaces, empty your garbage cans regularly and keep an eye out for organic rotting matter. Don’t leave food in pet bowls after they have eaten. Wipe down trash cans from the outside as well. Net all the windows and shut the doors. Check for cracks and holes (particularly around window screens) that they might be using. Unhygienic rubbish tips are a prime fly-breeding site, but if garbage is covered by a layer of soil, preferably daily, this can be avoided.
But why are certain people singled out?
Could it be the scent in the soap or shampoo? Apparently, sweet fruity smells attract flies because they like sugar. Maybe your skin, mouth and nostrils are moister than others. It is also claimed that flies and gnats migrate to the taller persons in a group. You don’t have to sweat a lot - just more so than the rest of the people in your house to make it more likely for them to land on you.
Fruit flies are slightly smaller than the common house fly. They are not interested in human smells but in yeast, so they are attracted to things that are fermenting and can ferment, like sugar, fruit and, of course, actual yeast. So, if you drink alcohol and hang around with people who don’t, or if you use grooming products with alcohol in them, you will attract fruit flies. Don’t eat fruit outside? Switch your soap if it is fruit smelling. But apart from swatting and waiting for winter , there is little you can do.
Blowflies, also known as bottle flies, have metallic green or blue bodies, are large, and make a buzzing sound when they come near. They are really a nuisance for me because they lay their eggs on animals, and my hospitals get thousands of animal patients every week suffering from maggot infestation. There are other flies as well: the Drain fly found in sewage beds whose wings are densely covered in hair and held tent–like over the body when at rest; the Flesh Fly, whose three-striped body looks like a chequer board, lays its eggs on decaying meat or fish or animal flesh.
Swatting a fly is so difficult. Their eyes allow them to see all around and they have a sixth sense about danger. According to the California Institute of Technology flies fly within 100 milliseconds of recognizing a threat.
Flies have been around since before humans. In the Biblical plague of Egypt, flies represent death and decay. The Philistine God Beelzebub's name, (often equated with Satan), means Lord of the Flies. In Greek mythology Zeus sent a fly to bite Pegasus, the winged horse, causing his rider Bellerophon to fall back to earth when he was attempting to fly to Mount Olympus the home of the gods. In the Red Indian Navajo religion Big Fly is an important spirit.
Many scientists have tried to find out how to use flies constructively. Suggestions range from mass rearing them and using them on animal manure garbage dumps. (Flies are recyclers. They eat scraps and then excrete and turn it into a substance plants can use). Or harvesting their maggots and feeding them to animals. Both these ideas seem insane to me.
Ogden Nash's poem sums up our irritation with this being "God in His wisdom made the fly / And then forgot to tell us why.” Perhaps to keep human populations down by spreading diseases that range from dysentery to typhoid and cholera. During the Second World War the Japanese, under Shiro Ishii, used special Yagi bombs on China. The bombs contained flies coated with cholera bacteria. The bombs thrown in Baoshan in 1942 and Shandong in 1943 killed over 4 lakh people.
Anyway now that I am back, my fly demons seem to have lessened. So maybe it was the oil.
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- Denis Giles
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By Maneka Sanjay Gandhi
Claudius Galenus, known as Galen, was a Greek physician/surgeon in the Roman Empire who was physician to several Roman emperors. He, unfortunately, influenced the development of various scientific disciplines, including anatomy, physiology, pathology, pharmacology and neurology, in European medical science for 1300 years, till proper scientists found that everything he said was “incorrect” or rubbish.
Galen's anatomical reports, based mainly on dissection of monkeys and pigs, remained uncontested until 1543, when printed descriptions and illustrations of human dissections were published in the seminal work De Humani Corporis Fabrica by Andreas Vesalius, who had conducted dissection on human cadavers which turned out to be completely different. Galen's theory of the circulatory system remained unchallenged until ca. 1242, when Ibn al-Nafis published his book Sharh Tashrih al-Qanun li’ Ibn Sina (Commentary on Anatomy in Avicenna's Canon), in which he reported his discovery of pulmonary circulation, proving Galen completely wrong.
Galen's principal interest was in human anatomy, but Roman law had prohibited the dissection of human cadavers. Because of this restriction, Galen performed anatomical dissections on living and dead animals, as he believed that these were the same as humans. His anatomical experiments on animal models led him to propound on the circulatory, nervous, respiratory systems and other structures - all of which turned out to be entirely incorrect. Galen killed thousands of people using the theories deduced from killing thousands of animals.
Unfortunately, while all these theories, gleaned from killing animals, were proved wrong, his legacy of testing on animals remains prevalent till today, even though it has been proven again and again that animal-based experiments have not contributed to science, but rather have hindered scientific and medical progress. As a matter of fact, most of the major life saving devices and procedures came without anything to do with animals. Take the heart, for example:
Dogs’ coronary arteries differ from humans. They have smaller connections with one another and the left coronary artery dominates, while in the human the right artery dominates. The conduction system has a different pattern of blood supply. Dogs’ blood coagulates differently from humans. Their reaction to shock is different. After massive blood loss, a dog’s intestines are congested, while in the human we see pallor and ischemia (lack of blood supply). But we continue to experiment on dogs.
Here is a list of major discoveries made without animal experimentation:
ANESTHESIA-
Ether was discovered by Valerius Cordus in 1540, when he mixed alcohol and sulphuric acid. Called “sweet oil of vitriol”, Medical students used ether to get high in “ether frolics”. Dr. Crawford Long, a surgeon, noticed that people with bruises who had taken ether were insensitive to pain. He tried it on a patient during surgery.
HYPOTHERMIA- (cooling the body before surgery)-
In 1757 observation of persons exposed to cold for long periods showed that they could survive, and was written about by the Swedish Academy of Sciences. In 1798 Dr. James Currie had human volunteers take prolonged baths in cold water. He discovered that their heart rate was reduced. This information is now used to reduce the heart rate in patients before surgery.
POSITIVE PRESSURE VENTILATION- (blowing air into the lungs during surgery)-
Dr. Ferdinand Sauerbrach created positive pressure ventilation to keep the lungs from collapsing during surgery, but withdrew the technique when it proved harmful to animals. In 1891 American surgeon George Fell decided to use it anyway, and used it successfully.
HEART LUNG MACHINE-
Dr. Jack Gibbon tested it on cats, then humans. The humans died. Then other doctors perfected it while using it on human patients. Dr. Anthony Andreason created the low flow theory – that less blood would have to be used than the amount in the body, by observing that war injured soldiers could survive on less blood than originally thought.
HEART PACEMAKERS-
Grew out of ventricular septal defect surgery. To prevent deaths during heart surgery, due to stoppage of electrical activity, the pacemaker was developed to keep the electrical activity going and to keep the heart from giving out.
ARTIFICIAL HEART VALVES-
The cage ball valve was almost withheld from human patients because it killed dogs in the lab. Drs. A. Starr and L. Edwards found that it worked on humans.
BLOOD TRANSFUSIONS-
In 1667, Jean Dennis transfused blood from animals to humans and killed people. Blood typing was discovered by an American scientist without animal experiments, and that led to successful blood transfusions.
CARDIAC CATHERIZATION- (for diagnostic purposes)-
First used by Dr. Forsmann on himself. He put a catheter through his own arm and advanced the tip to his heart, observing it through a fluoroscope.
BYPASS SURGERY-
In 1961, in France, Dr. Kunlin used a portion of a person’s vein to replace obstructed segments. This gave birth to bypass surgery for different parts of the body.
CALCIUM ANTAGONISTS- (used to treat high blood pressure)-
It was discovered to lower the blood pressure when given to patients to reduce heart pain (angina).
BUBBLE OXYGENATOR-
C. Walton Lillehei developed it through learning what happened to patients during surgery when the heart lung machine was used and complications arose. He decided to use the disposable sheet oxygenator, so that blood would not become contaminated.
ANTI-FOAMING AGENTS- (used to stop blood from bubbling when oxygen is put into it)-
Was developed to stop milk from foaming, and adapted to use in open heart surgery.
COARCTATION OF THE AORTA- (twisting of the aorta that prevented blood flow)-
Clarence Crafford put a clamp on the ruptured aorta and discovered that he could still perform surgery on the aorta without the patient dying. He discovered this by accident on a patient.
MITRAL STENOSIS- (defective heart valve)-
Dr. Henry S. Souttar, London Hospital, 1925, put his forefinger through the heart’s mitral valve and widened it. In 1949 Dr. Dwight E. Harking decided to use that same technique which is called finger fracture angioplasty.
BLUE BABIES- (Fallot’s Tetrology – Four heart defects that lead to blue baby syndrome)-
Dr. R. C. Brock of Guy’s Hospital developed a technique of surgery to overcome this problem, without any animal experiments (British Medical Journal 6/12/48). Another technique was developed by British surgeons N. R. Barrett and Raymond Daley of St. Thomas Hospital (British Medical Journal 4/23/49).
CARDIOPULMONARY RESUSCITATION-
Kouwenhoven, Jude and Knickerbocker devised this technique through practice on cadavers.
CLOSED CHEST CARDIAC RESUSCITATION-
Dr. Paul Zoll used this technique (electric shock) as early as 1956.
ELECTROCARDIOGRAM-
Brown and Mac Millan, Toronto, began investigating arrhythmia disorders directly on patients. Converted an old encephalogram to an electrocardiogram to monitor heart rhythm disorders.
DIGITALIS-
Dr. Thomas Lewis, Great Britain --- “The most essential information, the profound effects which digitalis is capable of exerting in auricular fibrillation, could not have been won through observation on the frog or normal mammal, but only, as it was won, by observation on patients.”
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