Hello all, just re-posting this as it was very late in the week's cycle on the other thread.
Hello, on the topic of sustainable medicine for the future, please can anyone in the JMG commentariat help me with this?
I am looking to find out what a family doctor would have had in the way of a home laboratory setup in a village surgery in the first half of the twentieth century. From historical fiction and the resources I already have (home nursing manual and pharmacopeia from the era) it seems there might have been say a surgery attached to a family home of the doctor, and there might also be a practice nurse and a midwife who lived in the village and shared the practice, and the health care team might do some lab tests in the surgery. In a town there might also be a pharmacist/chemist's shop which would prepare and supply the medicines needed, and in rural areas that dispensing would be done directly from the surgery.
So, some electricity, probably: battery torches, lamps and so on at least for inspection and procedures.
A gas or stove top autoclave for sterilizing equipment.
A light microscope, glass slides, and typical staining materials.
Probably a bunsen burner, running from a gas bottle, and test tubes and reagents for the tests.
What tests would this team be doing?
Full blood count I can think of, what else? I know proteinuria is important for detecting pre-eclampsia -- there's a bit about the tests here including that one based on heating is a valid test https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK705/ so that's another for my list, and it could be I will carve out my next slice of hobby time getting hold of that text (Clinical Methods: The History, Physical, and Laboratory Examinations) unless someone advises a better one.
What kind of stains would have been useful for village scale diagnostics?
Plus two replies already (Thank you. Great.):
Date: 2022-11-01 03:14 pm (UTC) From: (Anonymous) A string-and-paper centrifuge powered by hand. Useful in non-electrified locales
Simply growing cultures of bacteria taken from a throat sample and the like should be doable and worthwhile.
I guess it might be doable to grow and harvest antibiotics like penicillin. Same goes for keeping phages around. Not sure there but probably very worthwhile if at all possible.
Detecting poisonous substances comes to mind. Heavy metals, radon, mushrooms, berries and all the things.
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branchandroot
A village surgery lab c 1920, 1930?
Date: 2022-11-01 05:29 pm (UTC)Hello, on the topic of sustainable medicine for the future, please can anyone in the JMG commentariat help me with this?
I am looking to find out what a family doctor would have had in the way of a home laboratory setup in a village surgery in the first half of the twentieth century. From historical fiction and the resources I already have (home nursing manual and pharmacopeia from the era) it seems there might have been say a surgery attached to a family home of the doctor, and there might also be a practice nurse and a midwife who lived in the village and shared the practice, and the health care team might do some lab tests in the surgery. In a town there might also be a pharmacist/chemist's shop which would prepare and supply the medicines needed, and in rural areas that dispensing would be done directly from the surgery.
So, some electricity, probably: battery torches, lamps and so on at least for inspection and procedures.
A gas or stove top autoclave for sterilizing equipment.
A light microscope, glass slides, and typical staining materials.
Probably a bunsen burner, running from a gas bottle, and test tubes and reagents for the tests.
What tests would this team be doing?
Full blood count I can think of, what else? I know proteinuria is important for detecting pre-eclampsia -- there's a bit about the tests here including that one based on heating is a valid test https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK705/ so that's another for my list, and it could be I will carve out my next slice of hobby time getting hold of that text (Clinical Methods: The History, Physical, and Laboratory Examinations) unless someone advises a better one.
What kind of stains would have been useful for village scale diagnostics?
Plus two replies already (Thank you. Great.):
Date: 2022-11-01 03:14 pm (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
A string-and-paper centrifuge powered by hand.
Useful in non-electrified locales
http://www.nature.com/articles/s41551-016-0026
Date: 2022-11-01 03:32 pm (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
Interesting question.
Simply growing cultures of bacteria taken from a throat sample and the like should be doable and worthwhile.
I guess it might be doable to grow and harvest antibiotics like penicillin. Same goes for keeping phages around. Not sure there but probably very worthwhile if at all possible.
Detecting poisonous substances comes to mind. Heavy metals, radon, mushrooms, berries and all the things.