As the world has evolved, we’ve seen changes in nearly every facet of life. Horses would be replaced by internal combustion engines, which in turn would be replaced by electric vehicles. While at sea, Sail power would be replaced by internal engines and, in the context of military vessels, by nuclear power. There’s no denying that some of these evolutions have changed the way we live life forever.

But, there’s one other thing that helps us achieve an increase in life expectancy, and that’s some of the improvements that we’ve seen thanks to developments in modern medicine. Advancements in manufacturing would give us new and improved drugs for treatment, while testing and pathology would be equally relevant.

It’s the field of pathology that’s the focus of today’s What The Tech. Providing advanced testing and preventative medicine, it has played a huge role in helping us understand and treat conditions within the human body. Let’s check it out!

The microscope was a huge lead forward in terms of the ability to analyse disease. Source: Wikipedia

Early Pathology

While the discovery of disease and pathology dates back to ancient times, it’s fair to say that some of the most recent developments have come with new and exciting technology. However, despite a lack of technology and overall knowledge, these early medical specialists still contributed to the field. In fact, the modern Hippocratic oath is named after the Greek physician Hippocrates.

A modern lab in play. Source: Wikipedia

Even in these early studies of Disease and Pathology, physicians were able to correctly identify diseases and even nominate treatments that might be effective. Due to a lack of microbial knowledge, though, it would take plenty more research and a few future developments before we could gain a deeper understanding of the human body and the diseases that plague it.

Eventually, this would come in the 19th century as microbiology knowledge expanded rapidly. This would expand the overall knowledge of germ theory, and create a deeper understanding of pathogens, infection and treatment methods.

With antique medicine relying on everything from luck to voodoo or witchcraft, being able to see viruses and pathogens spread and multiply must have been astonishing for the physicians of the age. With the microscope on its way, though, things were about to get much, much more interesting.

The Golden Years

Rudolph Virchow would eventually be known as the Father of cellular biology, and it would be he who would hypothesise that disease and its evolution would come from defective or abnormal cells. Paired with the microscope, he would be responsible for bringing pathology from an anatomy-based level to a cellular-based level.

Following on from this research, Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch pathology to microbiology. Pasteur’s germ theory, which came in the 1860s and Koch’s postulates from the 1880s, proved that specific microbes cause specific diseases, like anthrax or tuberculosis.

At this point, while our understanding of disease had moved ahead in great leaps and strides, we were still short a few things to get us to the modern era.

The first would be blood groups, the discovery of which was first observed in 1901. This was a huge revelation as it meant that for the first time, blood could be correctly tested, analysed and even transfused.

The last thing we needed to cover would be the technology side of pathology. While microscopes would be responsible for getting humans off to a flying start, an even greater depth of detail, due to refined manufacturing, would be responsible for unlocking much, much more.

Testing For Everything

As technology has evolved, so has the field of pathology. What started as a basic, almost rudimentary approach to understanding disease and germ theory has rapidly grown into its own subsection of modern medicine. Now, we have histopathology, pulmonary pathology, surgical pathology and one of my personal favourites, forensic pathology.

Histopathology looks at samples in great detail, aiding in diagnostic medicine. Source: Wikipedia.

Accompanying this is a ridiculously broad volume of easy-to-use tests that have been directly developed due to evolutions in modern medicine and science. While in the old days, pathology labs were an essential part of the testing process, in some instances, we can simply test for some conditions by ourselves at home.

Women can track ovulation and pregnancy using simple over-the-counter methods to test, while employers and law enforcement can carry out workplace drug testing quickly and cheaply.

Probably one of the best examples of this evolution would be a well-known but rather controversial topic. When COVID would rock the globe in 2020 and send countries worldwide into various states of containment measures, it would be pathology methods that would end up being the silent heroes of the pandemic era. Not only did they come up with Rapid Antigen Tests far sooner than they should have, but in the early stages of the pandemic, pathologists would be responsible for testing tens of thousands of people, day after day after day.

It was a great example of how, when properly resourced, modern medicine is able to scale upwards to the benefit of all humans. While some things will remain controversial, there’s no denying the impact that things like this have had on our overall life expectancy.

The pathology process is now very clearly set out. Source: Wikipedia.

Into the Future

While the past fifty years in medicine have been insanely progressive, the reality is that the evolution of artificial intelligence and a deeper understanding of human anatomy leave us well placed to experience even more exciting evolutions.

In fact, we see this already starting to develop in some instances. Immunotherapy, which is a relatively new treatment, has been a near-miracle cure in terms of treating some types of cancers. The evolution of nanotechnology has even more to offer with new ways to diagnose, treat and image all types of medical conditions.

One of the most interesting developments, though, is the evolution of genetic sequencing and its ability to provide personalised cures and treatment at a cellular level. This is fascinating as it means that in the future, doctors can potentially customise treatments on an individual level.
The haters are going to try convince you otherwise, but us nerds think that science is pretty damn cool. It’s hard to go wrong when you trust the data.

What The Tech is our recurring, twice-monthly piece that looks at the technology that was essential in shaping our modern world.

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