Contents - IADR/AADR

CHAPTER TWO: ACHIEVEMENTS OF MEDICAL SCIENCE
OVER THE PAST FIFTY YEARS
FREDERICK STENN, M.D., M.S.
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE AND CHAIRMAN OF THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE COMMITTEE,
NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY MEDICAL SCHOOL, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS.
The dynamic growth of medical science over the past half century has greatly exceeded the
achievements of any other fifty-year period in the history of medicine. This accomplishment is the product of
many centuries devoted to the learning of scientific principles as taught by Newton and Francis Bacon, Vesalius
and Harvey, and by the application of the precise methods of Pasteur and Lister, Johannes Müller and Virchow.
This period promoted high standards in medical education through the efforts of Abraham Flexner, the
American Medical Association, the American College of Surgeons, the Association of American Medical
Colleges, and the American Hospital Association; through the establishment of specialty boards; and through
the appearance of the full-time faculty in the medical schools. These five decades were decades of research
vigorously pursued by the Rockefeller Institute in New York, by the Medical Research Council of Great Britain,
by the U.S. Federal Government, and by medical schools, foundations, and the pharmaceutical industry, with
emphasis upon basic science. Perhaps the greatest stimulus of all lay in World War I, which uncovered glaring
deficiencies in medical science, such as the poor control of wound infections, lethargic encephalitis, meningitis,
and war psychosis. The quarter-million deaths that followed in the wake of the influenza epidemic of 1919
demanded a serious reappraisal of medicine.
England, Scotland, France, Germany, Russia, Japan, and the United States continued in their course of
increasing excellence in service, education, and research. The World Health Organization helped to quell the
great destroyers of mankind—malaria, yellow fever, malnutrition, tuberculosis, and schistosomiasis—and raised
health standards in the most backward countries.
The movement toward national health care by which all received free or nearly free medical care from
birth to grave was adopted by the Scandinavian countries, England, Russia, South Africa, New Zealand, and
parts of Canada, Medicare and Medicaid being practiced in the United States. Third-party carriers like Blue
Cross and Blue Shield arose in the United States, along with health centers and group practice units like the
Mayo Clinic and the Permanente Group in California. Life expectancy in the United States improved from 53.6
years for men and 54.6 years for women in 1920 to 67.3 years for men and 73.7 years for women in 1956. The
death rate per 1000 population in the United States was 14.2 in 1920 and 9.0 in 1967. The national health
expenditure in 1950 was $12,867,000, and in 1968 it was $53,122,000. The monies spent for research and
INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR DENTAL RESEARCH (IADR) – THE FIRST FIFTY YEAR HISTORY PAGE 9