med-hints

  Strange as it may seem to some entrepreneurs, hospitals weren’t initially established to create wealth. Our nation’s first, Philadelphia’s “Pennsylvania Hospital,” was founded in 1751 “to care for the sick-poor and insane who were wandering the streets.” The facility was the idea of a Quaker who was medically educated in Paris a century before physicians believed bacteria and viruses cause infectious diseases. He wanted to emulate Paris’ Hotel-Dieu, the continent’s second oldest. The Parisian facility was established by Saint Landry in AD 651 “to treat pilgrims and the poor.” By the early 21st century, the facility had become central Paris’ “top    casualty and emergency hospital.” It closed in 2013. During the First World War, 116,000 Americans lost their lives and many were wounded. Four years later, the Veterans Administration was launched and they started building hospitals. By 2020, the VA was operating 170 medical centers and claimed to be the l...

    “Acute bronchitis (according to the Mayo Clinic website) often develops from a cold or other respiratory infection. People who have bronchitis often cough up thickened mucus, which can be discolored.  The illness usually improves within a week to 10 days without lasting effects, although the cough may linger for weeks.”   The condition “is usually caused by viruses, typically the same viruses that cause colds and flu (influenza). Many different viruses — all of which are very contagious — can cause acute bronchitis. Antibiotics don't kill viruses, so this type of medication isn't useful in most cases of bronchitis.”     When I practiced medicine I believed people should not start antibiotics until or unless they ran a fever or their sputum turned thick or yellow.   Some of my non medical friends thought I was wrong and started taking a five day course of the antibiotic Azithromycin (a Z pack) when the first developed symptoms. They apparently tho...