Lately, I've been fascinated by a book entitled "Why You Should Store Your Farts In A Jar" which was written by David Haviland, one of the leading authors in the 21st century. Some of the scientific and historical facts presented in his book blew up my mind (figuratively)and I couldn't afford to put that particular book down until I have read every single word written in it. It was an enjoyable one and half day for me which gives me some inspiration regarding what to write in my next article. Of course, if you scrolled through my blog post, you will find that I'm trying to evolve as a writer regarding how I write my article to explain a specific topic. Any people can summarise facts written on the Wikipedia to write an article, but how many of them would be willing to explore countless sites and sources and discover a few styles of writing which would make their article much interesting. Obviously, I'm still learning myself, but it's like climbing a stair, you climb to the top, turn and suddenly you are at the bottom again. So much to learn, so little time. Being in the @steemstem community gives us some opportunities to learn and practice regarding how to commit to a few writing styles, scientific facts and how to develop your own academic opinion and arguments.
We might have been taking science or anything related to it for granted in the 21st century but back then when there is no internet, certain books etc. (that would have made things easier) most of the academicians were forced to be creative to create something which is considered relevant today. I know what I'm saying seems like doesn't make much sense but think about it, now we have plenty of ways to prevent pregnancy while not abstaining from having sexual intercourse with someone. You will think that people in the past wouldn't have much idea regarding contraception but in ancient Egyptian, they have some idea about it; they even invented something close to the female's condom by using crocodile's crap. Yeah, I have written it right, CRAP. The idea is to insert a dry crocodile dung into the woman's vagina and the heat will allow them to be moulded into a barrier which would prevent sperms from entering the holiest site. What if some of the sperms can penetrate through that barrier? Well, afraid not, as the dung would not only act as a barrier but they would also kill incoming sperms as they were slightly acidic relative to the internal environment. We can see they provide two functions at once, forming a barrier and killing sperms, which would make it like the ultimate contraceptive that can found in the ancient Egyptian.
Unfortunately, like many others, there are flaws in using dung as a contraceptive (obviously). It might be acceptable for them (ancient Egyptian) to use it but today, using any kind of crap to create a contraceptive device is considered socially unacceptable. Furthermore, people might get infected by any microbial agents available in the animal's crap; it's not an elegant solution. So how do we improvise this concept? The intention of using crocodile dung to form a barrier inhibiting sperm's entry seems to resemble the function of today's cervical cap. Whether the device is derived from the concept used by the ancient Egyptian, I wouldn't be sure about that as there is no definite documentation which is available (in my knowledge) stating with confidence that cervical cap is the product of crocodile's dung contraceptive improvisation. Nevertheless, we knew that ancient Egyptian has been popular with their various discipline of knowledge and most of them are detrimental to us (humans) and some might not be effective as they were intended to. Even if, most of the time, the outcome is terrible, they have some ideas on how to proceed with what they knew. Eventually, that's how science grows. We learn from mistakes and even though some of them end up killing people most horribly, today, they might be one of the things that have been saving countless lives.
Let's take blood transfusion for example. Even though we don't know exactly how and when people first discovered blood transfusion, in some of the documentation, people from the Inca Empire which resided in South America might be the first one which tried and practised blood transfusions due to its potential of saving lives. They have been practising the art of bloodletting to treat certain conditions and it has been working for decades. If you have a headache, just carve your head with a knife and let the blood flow, you will heal in a matter of seconds. Not sure if we can treat people like that but the principle is to discard a specific volume of blood near to the ailment site. Even though it is scientifically vague with no evidence whatsoever, today, we have some principle of treatments which resemble those. Some people went for cupping therapy once or a few times in a month to keep themselves healthy and doctors have been using the principle of bloodletting among Jehovah's witnesses to collect and keep their blood inside a specialised bag and transfuse them, in case they need it. There is a lot of things that have been happening in the world which forced us to be creative to save someone or something.
Of course, there are not many records regarding successful transfusion made by the Incas as the first ever successful blood transfusion was carried out by fellow astronomers. However, according to the record which was written by El Inca, Inca Empire had quite a civilisation and among them, their medical treatment was mostly comprised of bloodletting. This was way before European medicine even got into South America and according to El Inca, the Inca Empire had a lot of successful blood transfusion in comparison with what has been going on in the European before the discovery of blood types. We have a lot of grim records of people being killed by blood transfusion due to immunologic reactions caused by different blood types. In 1492, the blood of three boys was infused (directly) into a pope which has fallen into a coma, but all of them died due to a severe immunologic reaction. There are a series of fatalities after that year but we (humans) kept on trying until the discovery of blood types by Karl Landsteiner in 1901. The only logical explanation and what has been proven lately is that the majority of Incas have the same blood type, O with positive rhesus. It's could have explained why there was a high success rate of blood transfusion among people of Incas.
Quite a story, huh? Let's talk about something else. One of the most significant discoveries of the 21st century is the antibiotics. Alexander Flemming has been one of the most prominent figures as the discovery of Penicillin has saved millions of lives throughout the century. Antibiotics have been used on multiple occasions which include as a cheap growth agent for dairy farm animals but the most significant impact of antibiotics is to spare people of potential pains which can be caused by various microbial agents. Let's take gonorrhoea as an example as it is a disease which has some sort of gruesome way of treatment in the past. One of the most common presentation for people with gonorrhoea is dysuria (painful urination) and this is caused by narrowing of the urethra of both male and female. Now, before the discovery of antibiotic specifically for treating gonorrhoea, we have no definitive treatment to treat the disease. The only treatment which is available to alleviate the symptoms of painful urination which is, ironically, painful as well is called sounding. Now, it doesn't involve the usage of sound waves or anything but the metal rod which is used for the treatment is called a sound.
I think you can guess up to this point. The "sound" would have a different length for different genders and the rod has to be inserted along the urethra. It would then be stretched to open up the tube to prevent any obstruction and aid urination. In theory, it would be convenient and "sound" but it undoubtedly painful. Throughout the years, there are a lot of people (especially men) who fainted in the middle of the insertion process. I mean, who wouldn't, when someone aggressively trying to insert a long metal rod into your junk; it's beyond painful. Thank god for antibiotics! But wait! The act of sounding still existed up to today, mostly for pleasure. There are a lot of designs and the majority of them are used to stimulate the prostate gland in men. It's a rather odd practice and people do have weird fetishes one of this day. If you know how to search for it, there are hundreds of tutorial websites on the net which can be used by newbies who appreciate pain as a form of pleasure. That was weird. I hope people would stick to masturbation instead of going all the way to learn about sounding.
Have you ever heard about the concept of spontaneous generation? It's a theory which has been developed by people who lived before the discovery of a microscope by Antonie van Leeuwenhoek. People didn't understand the concept of microorganism yet and they just thought some organism can be spontaneously conjured up from non-living entities; maggots for example. It was long thought that when we died, anything that is left was subjected to create other forms of living entities like maggots. It's a cool concept even though it is wrong but I guess I would write about it in a separate article so that I can write a great deal about them. Although most of the theories or practices which have been done in the past are wrong, they inspire us to move on and discover things to move forward. Science has expanded a lot since the ancient time and I'm quite sure it will make a significant stride 100 or even 1000 years from now. Too bad, I might be living way shorter than that but I guess, I have to start now if I want to make a significant contribution to mankind.
References And Further Reading Materials
- Why You Should Store Your Farts in a Jar. Retrieved on October 11th, 2018.
- The First Human Blood Transfusion. Retrieved on October 11th, 2018.
- A Guide to Sounding: The Kink Where You Stick a Rod Up Your Urethra. Retrieved on October 11th, 2018.
- 10 Crazy Contraceptives from History. Retrieved on October 11th, 2018.
- Spontaneous Generation. Retrieved on October 11th, 2018.
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