Infusion Devices Discovered as Intravenous Therapy During the Cholera Outbreak –
We often encounter intravenous (IV) therapy in patients being treated in hospital. In short, intravenous therapy is administering medication via injection or infusion device . In the discovery of infusion devices , IV therapy went through a very long journey.
Reporting from Discover Magazine , Wednesday (1/6/2016), this method of inserting an IV solution into a vein was initially carried out as an effort to deal with bacteria that cause diarrhea which resulted in cholera outbreaks .
Cholera itself is a disease that can cause death for sufferers. So, it is not surprising that intravenous therapy is called a discovery that changed the world , because of its benefits in saving many lives. Dating back to 1831, cholera was a very deadly disease in many countries such as India, China, Iran and Russia.
At that time, England even recorded that more than 23,000 people died due to a cholera outbreak. This was the beginning where the infusion device was discovered and became an intravenous therapy which is still a reliable discovery today.
Seeing this chaos, a 22 year old doctor from Ireland, William Brooke O’Shaughnessy became interested in researching the cholera epidemic that had spread in various countries.
He noted that there is a decrease in fluid volume in the bodies of cholera patients which increases the risk of death. O’Shaughnessy then examined blood and stool samples from cholera patients, to measure the electrolyte levels in both samples.
The results showed that large amounts of water, sodium, chloride and bicarbonate in the blood were lost when the patient defecated. Eventually O’Shaughnessy published his findings in the journal Lancet and proposed the simple idea of ​​refilling the empty intestine directly into the blood vessels.
After that, the idea emerged to develop intravenous therapy, by administering the fluids the body needs through an infusion device.
Invention of intravenous therapy and infusion devices
Two months after O’Shaughnessy’s research was published, a doctor in England, Dr Thomas Latta, was inspired by his ideology. Latta performed the first therapeutic intravenous resuscitation in May 1832 with a homemade infusion solution consisting of a mixture of sodium, chloride, and dilute hypotonic bicarbonate.
At that time he started injecting intravenous solutions using a syringe and silver tube, to help his 25 patients survive. “After inserting the tube into the basilic vein, carefully, and anxiously, I watched the effects ounce after ounce of injection, but there was no visible change,” Latta said.
However, he still tried IV therapy to inject IV fluids into his patients and gradually the fluid began to enter. At that time, Latta’s discovery of intravenous therapy failed to gain attention or be accepted by various parties, even for the rest of his life.
However, as we know, IV therapy is currently used to rehydrate patients who have lost fluids while replenishing electrolytes through their blood vessels via an infusion device.
The discovery of the infusion device has become one of the discoveries that changed the world, and is very beneficial for the modern medical world.
