HOSPITAL

The state has established the wide network of the medical institutions. One of them is the regional hospital. It is multistory building with all modern conveniences. There are some departments in this hospital. One can see surgical, cardiological, pulmonological, gastroenterological and other departments.

There are many light and cozy wards in each department. In every ward one can see some beds, bed-side tables and chairs. Each department houses approximately 50 patients.

The work at the hospital begins early. First of all the nurses take the patients’ temperature and fulfill the doctor’s prescriptions. If it is necessary, they give intramuscular and intravenous injections, cup the patients, apply mustard plasters, make compresses, and give the prescribed medicines.

Every day the doctors make the morning round. They examine the patients, listen to the heart and lungs, palpate the abdominal parts, feel the pulse, and measure blood pressure. They make the diagnosis and prescribe proper treatment to every patient. I should like to note that our physicians and nurses pay much attention to the treatment of the patients.

A surgical department houses 65 staffed beds. There are large and small wards and a large, light operating theatre here.

In this department there are patients with surgical diseases, such as: appendicitis, hernia, gastric and duodenal ulcers, cholecystitis and others.

The most common operations are appendectomy, vagotomy, stomach resection, cholecystectomy and operations on the thorax and thoracic organs. The operations are performed under general or local anaesthesia. The anaesthetist gives the patient anaesthesia and when the patient falls asleep the surgeon begins to perform the operation. The assistant and surgical nurses help the surgeon during the operation. They give the necessary surgical instruments and control the patient’s condition.

After the operation special attention is paid to the postoperative condition of the patient. The surgeon prescribes a proper treatment and definite diet. Every day the surgeon makes the morning round, and examines the patients. The nurse takes the patient’s temperature, dresses the wounds, gives injections, and fulfills the doctor’s prescriptions.

The work in the surgical department is rather difficult but very important.

In the cardiological department one can see patients with heart diseases, such as: myocarditis, pericarditis, cardiosclerosis and others. The patients have heart troubles, breathlessness, weakness and other symptoms. The doctors and nurses pay much attention to these patients.

In the pulmonological department there are patients with lung diseases and disorders of the respiratory tract. They suffer from pneumonia, bronchitis, asthma and others. The patients complain of a bad cough, high temperature, and headache.

In the gastroenterological department you can find the patients with abdominal diseases. They have gastritis, colitis, ulcer and others. The patients feel pain in the stomach, weakness, and sometimes they have nausea and vomiting. The doctors use different methods of treatment of these patients and pay much attention to them.

GALEN

(philosopher, physician, discoverer of blood and the cranial nerves)

This Greek's genius is more certain than his dates. He was born about 129 AD and lived until about 210 AD. During this considerable life span, Galen managed to perform studies that would long influence medicine. He is still known among other things for his discovery of blood in human arteries and for his dissection of the human cranial nerves, the nerves that supply key areas of the head, face, and upper chest. Galen was the son of Nicon, a well-to-do architect and builder in Pergamum (Asia Minor). He first studied philosophy, one of the traditional fields for a boy of his background. Nicon then had a dream in which Asclepius, the god of healing, told him to permit his son to study medicine. Galen began his medical studies in Pergamum at the age of 16-17. In search of medical knowledge, he then roamed about much of the eastern Mediterranean studying medicine in various cities including Smyrna (now Izmir, Turkey) and Corinth (Greece). He completed his studies at the famous medical school in Alexandria (Egypt). Galen returned to Pergamum and at age 28 was appointed physician to the school of gladiators, a post he occupied for four years and that some say made him the first sports medicine specialist. After that, a career in Rome was in the cards. There he went at age 32 and became a famous and influential physician, taking on cases that no one else could handle. He accompanied the Roman legions of Marcus Aurelius on their campaigns, and served as the personal physician to several emperors. Galen described what he saw (not always the practice of the day). He identified the majority (seven of the twelve) of the cranial nerves.

Galen did experiments such as severing a nerve and observing the effects. He is thus regarded as the founder of experimental physiology. Galen was the first to determine that arteries carried blood and not air! (For over 400 years the Alexandrian school of medicine had taught that arteries are full of air). Galen's theories about the blood circulation, however, were well off the mark and it was not until the 17th century that the great English physician William Harvey would challenge Galen's ideas in this regard. With Hippocrates who preceded him by some 500 years, Galen was preeminent among the most distinguished physicians of antiquity. He knew all of the medical knowledge of his day, gathered it together, and wrote voluminously (and well) about it. Galen summed up the medicine of antiquity.

The writings of Galen were a blessing to the ancient world. But they became a curse when, for more than a millennium, they were held to be the unassailable authority on medicine. This paralyzed the progress of medicine, something Galen would have deplored.