Transplants

The transplant is a complex medical treatment. With transplants organs, tissues or cells of a healthy person can replace organs, tissues or cells of a sick person.

In some cases, this action serves to save a person's life, in others they help to improve the quality of life, or both.

Blood transplantation is the first example of transplant of which we have information throughout history.

As scientific knowledge has progressed, it has become possible to transplant almost anywhere on the body, such as the first heart transplant performed in 1966 in Minneapolis by Dr. Richard C. Lilehey.

This treatment in now widely used in medicine and greater risk the rejection, because if the transplant is from another person, the body cannot recognize the organ as its own, producing rejection, expulsion and infection of the organ.

Vaccines

What's a vaccine?
A vaccine is suspension of dead or weakened micro-organisms which is introduced in our bodies to produce antibodies against the infectious agent. So that when this micro-organism is inside your body you have defences against it and you will not suffer the disease.

The first vaccine.
In 1796 a British doctor, Edward Jenner (1749-1823), discovered the first vaccine which was against the human smallpox. His experiment consisted of introducing the virus of a cow in a 8 year-old child and some weeks later Jenner introduced the human virus to the same child but he didn't suffer the disease.

Types of vaccines.
- Vaccines of weakened micro-organisms: They produce a sub-clinical way of the disease like for example the vaccines against the smallpox or the hepatitis.
- Vaccines of dead micro-organisms: They also produce antibodies to defend our organism from the future infection. For example: the flu and the typhus vaccines.
- Vaccines of toxins produced by infectious agents: The immunization is produced by the weakened toxins because our organism produces antibodies against them.
- Vaccines obtained by genetic engineering: Using the recombinant DNA technology, it is possible to produce vaccines in bacterium cultures genetically modified.

Influenza vaccine.
Flu is an infection that each winter affects to 10-20% of the population, and in some cases it can be lethal. There is a vaccine against flu and it is usually supplied to people who are more likely to suffer the infection. The groups of people that are in risk are:
- Health workers.
- People with respiratory illness.
- Heart patients, people with renal diseases or diabetics.
- Old people.
- People who receive treatments with immunosuppressives.

ANAESTHESIA

The first person who operated under anaesthesia was William Thomas Morton, the 16th October 1846, to remove a tumour from the neck to a patient.

ANAESTHESIA ALONG HISTORY

Before anaesthesia ( it means "without pain") was discovered, there were many ways to relieve pain in patients suffering operations such as to remove a tooth, to draw an arrow or draw a member with gangrene. Alcohol, marijuana, opium, to knock the patient or grab him were the ways which were used to operate.

Along history, people have used different inhalation anaesthetics, but they are very dangerous to humans because they can die in the operation, so this type of general anaesthesia is only used if the operation is more important and advanced. In general, it's used local intravenous anaesthesia, which blocks the nerves of the area that we want to operate.

STAGES OF GENERAL ANAESTHESIA

When the anaesthesia is injected, there are four stages which the person experiences:

*Stage analgesia --> Muscle relaxation is minimal. In this stage, the person becomes unconscious.

*Stage delirium --> Breathing is irregular

*Stage surgical anaesthesia --> Irregular breathing stops and this stage lasts until spontaneous breathing stops.

*Stage marrow depression --> Spontaneous breathing stops and the patient may end up in respiratory failure.

Another type of anaesthesia is the epidural, which is applied in the air surrounding the lower spinal cord, which eliminates the sensation of pain in the abdomen and legs. It started to be used in childbirth to prevent pain to pregnant women, but today it's used in many different operations.

You can see more information about the anesthesia here

X-RAYS

WHAT ARE X-RAYS?
The so-called X-rays are an electromagnetic radiation which has a wave length similar to an atom and has the capacity to cross the solid bodies.
They are currently used in hospitals, airports, museum, car's factories, customs and observation satellites.

WHEN WERE THEY DISCOVERED?
They were discovered un the late 19th century and it was a success to the scientific community. They revolutionized the medical world because thanks to this discovering, the internal human bodies could be examined without using any surgery.

WHO WAS THE DISCOVERER?
The German physicist Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen discovered some X-rays similar to the light's rays, but they were invisible and for this reason he called them X-rays.
As a result, he was awarded the first Nobel's Prize for Physics in 1901.
At the beginning of the 20th century, Roentgen carried out many experiments in wood and carton with X-rays. But in the end, he took the first X-ray to his wife's hand. In it, the hand's bones were seen perfectly!

HOW DO X-RAYS MACHINES WORK?
A thin wire, the same as the one of light bulb, gets hot and it sends a constant electron current. Afterwards, these electrons are accelerated to a metal iron placed opposite. When they crash with it, they liberate electromagnetic energy, what we call X-rays.

DANGERS OF X-RAYS
X-rays can cause damages in the eyes, in the skin, genetic modification and even cancer.
Nowadays, the majority of the countries organize Nuclear Security Cabinet to watch the good work of X-rays machines.

APPLICATIONS
They are used in the field of medicine (for radiotherapy and electronic microscopes), security (to detect arms) and industry (to correct material).

Insulin

Insulin is the hormone that helps our body to use the glucose as a source of energy.

Its inadequate production or a inadequate use cause diabetes.

Frederick Grant Banting had the idea which drove to the first medication against the diabetes.

He was awarded the Nobel Prize of medicine for this discovery in 1923.

The early symptoms are:

- To be thirsty.

- To lose weight.

- Fatigue.

- Blurred vision...

There are 2 types of diabetes:

- The first type is developed in children. In the first type, the body does not produce the insulin to use the glucose.

- The second type develops in adults. In this case, the insulin can´t be used appropriately.

There are 4 types of insulin too:

- Of fast action.

- Of short action.

- Of long action.

- Of normal action.

The insulin acts mainly in the metabolism of the glucose, so all the tissues of the body may use the glucose as an energy source.

In Spain, there are over 1200000 diabetic people.

Every year, doctors discover 11 cases of diabetes (the first type) in a group of 100000 people and over 60 cases of the type 2 in a group of 100000 people.

If Grant hadn't discovered the insulin, there would be about 30000 deaths caused by diabetes in Spain every year.

The first patient who received the insulin was Leonard Thompson, when he was 14 years old, if he hadn't been medicated, he would have died.

The diabetic people must keep a very strict diet: They can´t eat sugar or animal fats.

THE CALCULATOR

The calculator is used by a lot of people around the world but , what do we know about it?

The first calculator

The first calculator was invented by Blaise Pascal in France in 1642. This calculator amazed Descartes and the Queen Christine of Sweden. Pascal was a brilliant boy who at the age of 16 years old could make very difficult maths exercises. When he was 17 he made an essay with 400 proves, one of them was the Pascal's Theorem. At the age of 19 he invented the calculator to help his father. Pascal died at the age of 39.

The man who invented the calculator

100 years before the computer was invented, the English mathematician Charles Babbage invented the first mechanic calculator in 1822. Twelve years later, he designed with Ada Lovelace (Lord Byron’s daughter), another calculator which could solve differential equations. Unfortunately they couldn’t finish it, but in the years 1985 and 1991, a group of English scientists made it through the plans of Babbage and Lovelace.
Spanish calculator
The Spanish engineer Leonardo Torres Quevedo in 1893 made a machine that could solve equations of all degrees. Torres Quevedo also invented a machine that could play chess and a cable car which crossed the Niagara Falls.
A few years later, the Catalonian engineer Pauli Castells I Vidal invented two different calculators, one of them could solve equations and the other one could make systems of linear equations.
Human calculator
There are a few people who can make difficult operations very fast, for them the calculator is useless.
Shakuntala Devi, an Indian woman, multiplied two 13-digits numbers in 28 seconds.
Wilhem Klein, a Dutch man made a 13th root of a 100-digits numbers in 90 seconds but Jaime Garcia Serrano, Colombian made the same problem in 15 seconds!

As a result, our life is easier thanks to all the people who have developed the invention of the calculator.