Man and the multitude; Galbraith discussion, part one

March of medicine a public service. Of the American hospital supply corporation. To go. To and you'll hear a lot of talk about how things were adventurous in the old days. When I was there I can tell you that the practice of medicine which happens to have been my business was more adventurous in the old days and I didn't like it. Most are not one bit. Let me give you an example. Back when I was a fairly young fellow in the days right after World War One we had a bad flu epidemic and it was so adventurous it was a nightmare. Doctor Doctor I got to find somebody. Doctor always been there. Anybody here. All right nurse All right. I just got here. What's the matter with doctors Mrs. Holt she can't breathe I think she's dying. All right there's calm down. What's a rule but she can't breathe I think. Here also you.

You couldn't blame her. That was a bad time in that epidemic and I hate to think how many hours she'd been tending all too many patients. I got to Mrs. holds in time and did what had to be done to relieve her. When I came out of the Colorado again I found the same nurse waiting. I should've stayed by her I know how sick she is. You did what you could. Not to worry. Don't lie now. So many patients so terribly sick and so few of us to go around. You can't be with them all the time and and yet they're so terribly sick. Doctor isn't there any answer. The American hospital supply corporation presents as a public service

march of medicine. Promises ations of Great Moments in medical history. Our story for today a gallery of wonders. This is Paul Byron speaking. And let me warn you the great moments in medicine which we will share with you on this program. I'm not in any sense history. Literally they are null. They are happening on today's medical front here in a real sense they are happening as of tomorrow of the 21st century. We are talking about a special field of medical experimentation and research in which engineers apply what they know about engineering principles to medical problems. But here to explain the plight more specifically is our guest Mr. Wendell crane president of health industries one of the largest industries in America is the health industry. And you don't need to be a doctor or a nurse to play a vital role in this growing field for many skills clerical sales research administrative are needed to provide the medical profession and hospitals with the equipment

drugs and supplies necessary to care for the sick. Engineers for example now contribute their special skills to the health field through biomedical engineering. Some techniques and principals use for bridges automobiles and rockets now are being applied to the health problems plaguing man through this interdisciplinary activity of engineering and medicine engineers have developed the electrocardiogram with which we can diagnose heart disease. The electroencephalogram through which we can map the functions of the brain and the extra Corporal heart pump. The use of radio isotopes and spotting brain tumors and so forth in the realm of patient care. Engineers have developed new systems for monitoring the condition of the hospital patients who are critically ill. We have gone far and there is no doubt but the future of biomedical engineering holds great promise.

Indeed the future of the entire health industry holds great promise. If bright dedicated people pursue health careers won't you consider a career in the help industry. So many challenges and opportunities are waiting. Thank you Mr. Crane. As you can see but we have to show you today is a real gallery of wonders to join us on our trip. Let us imagine that we have with us an American doctor a doctor of 40 or 50 years ago who ceased practice saved somewhere around 1945. He's a man who knew a good many of the answers about health and disease in his day but he was more troubled by his ignorance than pleased with what he didn't know. People need so much help and you want to be able to give it to them. I never knew exactly what was going on inside my patients. I've treated so many of the sick and I would have liked to have treated many more. But a man can't be everywhere.

I suppose young man you're going to tell me that nowadays they've figured out how a doctor can be six places at once. I'm not quite that doctor but almost they figured out how a doctor or a nurse can see in six places at once. Or rather 12. Minus 15 minus 40 minus 30. Over here doctors just look out this little window. Minus six minus minus minus three. I just I just blast off. This spaceship will go into orbit around the earth and after it is made its designated trip will

bring it back to life. I'm certainly obliged to you for letting me see all this. But what does it have to do with medicine. A great deal. Let me introduce you to the project's chief engineer. Can you explain how this space shot is tied in with medicine inside that space capsule to live monkeys monkeys. Yes. Big bucks to be exact. We need to find out what happens to a man like creature when he shot into space. We need physiological information medical information if you like. The problem is that these monkeys are alone in their capsule perhaps a hundred or so miles above the earth and traveling at a speed of around 18000 miles an hour. That's quite a problem. I used to have some trouble getting information about my patients when they were in a hospital ward of a block away. And then we've made some progress. We work with electronics engineers and the sort of thing that's like radio when and when. Yes

we've developed these very small measuring devices that give us body temperature electric cardiogram qualitative pulse and respiration records. We even have a device which measures the volume of blood pump by the heart and record that they can broadcast it right back to us here on Earth. Broadcast You mean like radio. Exactly doctor. That's like radio. 18000 miles an hour. Any number of thousands of miles away and we still can know how much blood the heart is pumping and what the respiration is and. Oh excuse me I I was just thinking. I used to listen to the radio called Club Eskimos Billy Jones and Ernie hair. I always like them but you don't. It never occurred to me that someday I might turn on a radio and listen to my patients. I don't know if you sometimes feel the way I do when I listen to radio news or read the

newspapers. It's unbelievable what miracles man is performing. Here's a man just like you or myself or walking outside a space capsule. Or here's a report of a surgical operation where they actually stop the patient's heart and keep him alive with an artificial one. And here is a man who's had a diseased bone replaced by a steel one. Well as I say it's believable and yet it's true. Engineers and doctors working together in this new field of biomedical engineering are looking for ways for the disabled to walk for the deaf to hear for the blind to see. If you are in high school or college why don't you think very seriously about getting into this new field. It calls for a great deal of training and study. You have to learn engineering and medicine but you know it would put you one in the front two years of research learning things that

no one before ever thought could be learned. Performing Barrett calls that people have dreamt about for centuries. It's a career for the exceptional person I admit. But after all may be you're that person. This is Paul Barnes again with me as a doctor who retired from medical practice around 1945 as a doctor. That's right. And now tell me that research engineer explained how medical information could be radioed back to where thousands of miles away. Has anyone worked out one of those radio gadgets to use in the hospital. Well yes there is such a thing. It's called a multiple patient monitor system for use in

intensive care wards and recovery rooms. If you're just over here at this is what they call the central monitoring station. This one is set up to give information on 12 seriously ill patients. Fascinating. How Let's see this big panel they've got 12 little screens one for each patient and each Green has eight dials. But break your heart rate to temperature readings. Do you mean that a nurse or a doctor can stand in here and know that much about 12 patients all the time. That's right all the time. Seems like America. Maybe you missed part of a doctor and notice these larger screens on the panel. This is Jim keeps a continuous accurate chart of each patients temperature heart rate blood pressure and respiration. It is a miracle no question about it. I wonder what the people thought when they first tried this one out. The doctors I mean and the nurses and the patients. I think I can show you. Just listen.

Paul I have to admit I didn't like a thing at first. Those little gadgets you had to attach to the patient what did they call the sensors. But I have to admit that thing did keep an eye on the patients. If the least little thing went wrong somebody new. What did I think about the hospital monitoring system. Rather when I was in that intensive care ward I was too sick to care. Afterwards I kind of got fun to the idea. If you're real sick you're worried. You want to know how things are going for you. And more than that you want your doctor and your nurse to know you don't want your troubles ignored. Well that monitor thing it never ignored you. Not ever. Perhaps it's because I'm a cardiologist and my patients often need close care and observation but I like the monitor.

It did what I could not always do it watch my patients. You know I go along with that doctor. What a wonderful thing you know to know all the time what is happening to your patients not only what is happening doctor but let me tell you what can be done for heart patients clinically. The work on devices to assist faltering hearts has brought exciting implications stirring hope that many cardiac problems may be brought under control in the near future. Artificial valves for human hearts have been successful in more than 20000 implantations to replace damaged or diseased parts. Oh truly what you're saying is the march of medicine. You said that these days engineers are working with doctors. It's a new field. They call it biomedical engineering. In my day if a man's site failed and you knew that he

would go fumbling and feeling his way through life and there was nothing you could do or paralysis if your legs were gone you were condemned to bed or a wheelchair. Now maybe just maybe you're a biomedical engineers could think of something. Perhaps that's too much to hope for. Well not quite. They've been trying doctor they've been trying. Now let's see if we can overhear what these two engineers are saying all right on above me. If he has the right kind of prosthesis with a hydraulic knee control and learn to walk very naturally right. Of course but your amputee ordinarily has the use of his hip muscles. The paralytic may have no muscles at all from the hip down so I can do is fit the paralytic with a locked knee long leg brace which means that he can't walk nearly so well and has to work much harder at it. But without the muscles the active muscles how can we do anything else. I think there's a way to do better. All right tell me about it. Well I started by making an analysis of how we walk. How anybody walks.

Every step we take breaks down into five phases. First there's the push off. And next the knee and hip flex and the leg goes ahead. So I call that phase the swing. No. What were they talking about. How to make a paralytic walk on his own two feet. How to give him an e that flexes an ankle that bends a leg that moves even though the muscles are dead. Were they successful. Oh yes there is a long leg brace for the paralyzed and it works. And here's another exhibit from our biomedical gallery of wonders. The man who reported on this device called it an electronic cane for the blind the eye is what we call a sensor.

It picks up or senses light rays reflected from the environment translates them into electrical messages which are passed to the brain and then as we say we see what I suggest is not something which is supposed to make the blind see to duplicate the sense of sight. But it's not possible to build an electronic sensor which is like the eye will pick up light rays and code them into messages which can be fed into the nervous system through some other sense the sense of hearing is too important to the blind to be interfered with. But perhaps the sense of touch could be used. Perhaps our messages could be fed into the skin of the face using perhaps some of the same pathways along which visual messages ordinarily. So the blind may someday see not as with their own eyes but in a new and wonderful way and paralytics may walk not quite as whole man but with what must seem to them unbelievable ease and freedom.

Truly wonderful. I remember reading at one time that a doctor remarked that while he was serving in the army the one thing which impressed him was that you work hard and you learn fast. All this may interest you doctor. In Vietnam today they are using the world's only inflatable air conditioned dust free 60 bed surgical hospital. Unbelievable. It was flown in by helicopter at the end of the first morning. The surgical team had performed four major operations. It was in a forward combat area using advanced electrical and environmental facilities. And more lives are saved. Yes indeed. And if necessary the entire hospital can be collapsed and loaded on to helicopters in less than 15 minutes. Marvelous. And if I may be just a little philosophical for a moment. Of course doctor since time immemorial medicine has been attempting to repair the human body damaged by disease accidents old age and birth defects. It seems to me that with the advent of scientific

inquiry the density of the medicine man has been replaced and now with the entrance of the engineers on the scene more wonders can be expected. Indeed they can. As you know the body is not a magical unit but has some of the attributes of other materials and can be altered to a degree by humans at one time the replacement of missing body parts for example was limited to external prosthesis. The picture comes to mind of Captain Hook and peg leg. Exactly. But since any invasion of the tissues was impossible for a long time because infection made entry into the abdominal cavity tantamount to death. I'm not a stranger to this development extensive surgery has been made possible by knowledge of antisepsis right. And by the invention of anesthetics the ability to repair the defective body has grown apace and the demand for artificial replacements for irretrievably damaged organs has increased tremendously. The engineers have certainly played their part but I remember in the attempt was made in the

1930s to manufacture an artificial heart. But the work had to be abandoned because the materials used caused excessive blood damage and clotting. As you remarked it is the march of medicine. First the attempt then the breakthrough during World War 2. Dr villain cough developed the first truly artificial organ the kidney I have a copy of a paper he read it a medical convention and one can see you've never lost your interest in medicine doctor. What could be more important than saving human lives is nothing to a dedicated man. A little more than 10 years ago June 1955 to be exact a group of far sighted investigators met in Atlantic City and formed the American Society for artificial internal organs. It has undoubtedly grown. Indeed it has. Today the society's members include physicians chemists surgeons physiologists electrical and mechanical engineers and other related occupations in the academic world industry and government. From this diverse group of investigators a wide variety

of artificial internal organs has been introduced to the medical community just how many forms do these artificial organs take. Well they include large external devices designed to take over temporarily the function of an organ just which organ very important ones artificial kidneys and heart lung machines used to sustain the body for a few hours while the heart is undergoing surgery implantable parts such as an artificial blood vessel or a heart valve. Who it seems like a scientist dream. Are there other implantable devices. Yes some which do not truly take the place of any existing organ drains for excess brain or abdominal fluid pacemakers to keep the heart beating at an acceptable rate. Bolts plates nails and pins for bone repair and devices for repairing detached retinas are just a few examples. What would you say has been one of the most difficult problems. I would say the development of the materials for artificial devices the materials must be to a greater or lesser degree physiologically acceptable.

The artificial heart lung machine and the artificial kidney for instance must not damage blood cells and materials for bone and soft tissue replacements cannot attack nor be attacked by the tissues. It all comes down to one principle doesn't it. What's that doctor. Everyone involved in these tremendous medical advances has to keep one thing in mind namely the balance of nature can't be upset. Only those materials may be used which will not upset that balance. Yes Doctor what a wonderful work is man and what a wonderful work is being done to help man to live despite adversities. I'm still fascinated by this new field of biomedical engineering and I hope I can interest you in it. This new field is an exciting challenging

one where engineers creatively apply engineering principles to a man's medical problems. There are so many exciting areas for biomedical engineers in research engineers and doctors attempt to produce the breakthroughs in understanding the body's functions and in creating artificial organs. And of course the manufacturers of medical instruments need biomedical engineers to create new devices for hospitals and hospitals and universities will need them to a biomedical engineering is bound to become an important teaching area. You know it's a funny thing. I sometimes hear people complain. There's nothing new under the sun. No excitement to experience new new places to discover ridiculous American from India may be a thing of the past. But now there are new one by haves a more challenging front hears intellectual human ones. Here

is this great new field of biomedical engineering which demands all the innovations and courage and devotion that anyone can bring to it. Why not consider a career in biomedical engineering for information right to health careers. Post Office Box four to seven. Evanston Illinois. This is Paul Barnes again. If you remember I mentioned earlier I remember everything in this world of miracles. I told you it's estimated that better than 20000 persons are living with artificial heart valves. I've read some published city recently about the implantable artificial heart. Yes there are several forms of this in the development stage ranging from

devices for temporary assistance to the heart to devices intended to replace the heart entirely artificial pacemakers designed to stimulate a lagging heart to beat at an acceptable pace have been widely used. How is that done without upsetting the balance of nature. The implantable versions of the pacemaker have a battery and circuitry pack encapsulated in Teflon or medical grade silicone rubber. While the leads to the heart are insulated both electrically and physiologically also with medical grade silicone rubber. It's a miracle a miracle that they've gone so far that has been the age old cry. Why can't we keep the heart beating. When I was a student I used to read some of the old doctors the old scientists and they asked the same thing. Perhaps none of us will see the day when all disease will be forgotten. But hopefully that day will come. Persons who today would be hopelessly injured by disease or accident will be renewed and returned to family life and community activity.

Whenever that day it will be the result of many research teams made up of physical scientists engineers and biological scientists and doctors working together. This could be the means by which man will achieve his rightful place in the universe and give substance to an old Arabian proverb. He who has health has hope and he who has hope has everything. That's a wonderful proverb. He who has health has hope and he who has hope has everything. Let me ask you Do you think your talent and whatever skill talent or interest you have you may find a rewarding opportunity in the health industry. For example if you are particularly interested in chemistry you can work in a research laboratory discovering new synthetic materials which can be used for such you can equipment or implantable organs. But the

talent for writing you may find yourself creating brochures describing new surgical methods you drug use. All hospital innovations. Perhaps you'd like to be a company representative who consults with medical people on their equipment needs and helps them plan for new techniques and facilities. If you can draw you may be illustrating nursing manuals or other health information. Indeed every skilled person is needed to design your laboratories and hospital facilities experience to business students to administrate computer specialists to help plan analyze secretaries accountants attorneys and others. If you have a desire to help people and work for a worthy cause what could be more rewarding than working to help keep people healthy. Why not choose a career in the health industry for information write

health careers post office box four to seven Evanston Illinois. Michael Madison you know much as ations of Great Moments in medical history. Much of medicine is presented as a public service by the American hospital supply corporation. Appearing on today's program where eles comer Paul Barnes Barry Hopkins and build rescue. This is marking Malani speaking of. Authentication research materials on this program was provided by

the research division of Encyclopaedia Britannica. If you wish to receive a copy of the script for this program or further information on careers in health and medicine Please send your name and address on a postcard to health careers. Post Office Box four to seven Evanston Illinois. This program was distributed by national educational radio. There is no national educational radio network.