Why Do We Practice? A Quick Look at the History of Sports Medicine

Do you wonder why a doctor practices medicine even after all that training? Medicine in context of sports, movements, and exercise is a very new concept. The field of sports medicine is defined as a medical subspecialty responsible for continuous care, enhancement of health and fitness, and prevention of injury and illness to an individual engaged in physical exercise and sports. In the spectrum of science, sports medicine was never a prime concern. It was not until the last couple of generations that exercise was looked to prolong life and can improve your body's day to day function. Gears of concern changed and Sports Medicine became into mainstream media. You are active and take this science for granted. But years ago exercise was looked down upon and the body's signs of physical work offered only signs of serfdom and lower class citizens. To follow, you will have a brief history of the movement science we now refer to as sports medicine.

At the beginning of recorded time, humans have been doing the right things. As far back as the Primitive Era (2500 B.C), the Chinese were using exercise to overcome and prevent disease in efforts of prolonging life. In the days of the Greek Era 9500 B.C. athletics were a large part of life and entertainment. Greek physicians began involving themselves with athletics. Herodicus (480 B.C.) is recognized as the first "Teacher of Athletic Medicine". Hippocrates (460 B.C.) is responsible for the development of medicine. He spent much time preparing athletes for competition and treating their injuries. Aristotle (340 B.C.) was another popular physician. Athletics were more than a sport, the Greeks built physical activity and training into their daily lives and education systems as a tool to thwart invasion from other countries.

The science briefly took off during the Roman Era (150 A.D). A Greek physician, named Clautius Galen moved to Rome and became the team physician to the gladiators! This may have been the first team coach of sorts in time. He optimized his unique position and gave four great contributions. The first was that muscles contract and shorten. Second, nerves carry a stimulus from the brain to the muscles. Thirdly, he noted that arteries take a substance (found to be Oxygen) from the lungs outwards to the tissues. Galen inevitably developed therapeutic rehabilitation exercises for his gladiators after injury. The Dark Era (1500 A.D.) offered little scientific developments. Humans heavily concerned themselves with warfare in those days. Supposedly many physicians were turning society off of exercise habits and routines. Ironically the physicians of the time mistranslated the Greek texts to mean that vigorous exercise and sports were not advisable.

When science began looking at exercise again, it became known as the Modern Era (1600-Present Day). During the 1600's William Harvey discovered and described the flow and circulation of blood. Other medical writers of the day claimed that exercise could "preserve health". In the 1800's, the science finally became quantified. An English physiologist, Edward Smith, was the first to quantify the amount of work output. He actually built a large treadmill to hold 10 prisoners for work force and then used wind resistance to adjust the power levels. In Scandinavia, a large movement began and separated itself from conventional medical fields. It was named Gymnastics. The new field organized the use of exercise to improve and develop physical and mental attributes.

America in the 1900-2000 years showed many improvements and discoveries. From 1900-1920, A.V. Hill, an English physiologist, won the Noble Prize for work in muscle physiology. He is considered to be the "First Exercise Physiologist." Two pioneer men studied under Hill. These two men established the Harvard Fatigue Lab. This is where it all started to boom. This is the very first exercise physiology lab in the US and it was literally in the basement of the Harvard Business School. Bruce Dill was one of the two founders and acclaimed as the first American Exercise Physiologist. He is highly published on exercise and physical chemistry, mainly on hemoglobin. The second founder, Joseph Wolfe, went on to create the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) in 1954.

The Harvard Fatigue Lab truly set a new science in motion. During the 1940-1960's, the Army Research Lab in Natick, Massachusetts began tests. They eventually established progressive research on body composition, the body's response to heat and cold during exercise, and much more. The 1960- 1980 years became the beginning of a fitness boom within mainstream media and society. This sudden resurgence of fitness and exercise lead Ken Cooper to coin the term and popular group training style, Aerobics. Research began into exercise effects from altitude, heart disease, nutrition, and surgical techniques and materials. All of which play vital roles in athletics and rehabilitation.

The present day is anyone's guess. Things may be discovered that will shake the foundations of exercise science. Just these last few years, the food pyramid was completely redesigned to include different aspects of activity levels and body types within society. Recent advances with laptop computers and processing speeds, biochemical analyzers, and gas analyzers that sense your breathing exchange while moving. If your athletic curiosity demanded, you can now find out the ratio of muscle fiber types by essentially using a thick needle and pulling out a small cylinder of muscle tissue. Surprisingly it is a painful and invasive quick prick. This is named NMR spectroscopy and imaging. We, in the industry are always practicing. We always adapt routine not only to maximize results but also to adapt to the ever-changing new science. The future is limitless with the human body.

Author : ROB NIX, Sport Skills Specialist

History of sport, exercise, sport medicine

Motion Sickness Medication

Often motion sickness medication can cause drowsiness. It must be taken prior to travel, usually at least 30 minutes before. In most cases the medication is not effective. Motion sickness bands or otherwise known as a motion sickness bracelet can be effective. You can use these time and time again and they work with acupressure. There are also some herbal remedies available, such as ginger. This can be taken in the raw form or in tea or even ginger biscuits (with a quite high ginger strength in them).

The sickness can make travelling extremely hard and not an enjoyable experience at all. There are some things that will make the risk factor higher than others, these include,

being prone to nausea
anxious
travelling in a boat, airplane, car, train
going on fair rides
bad ventilation
not seeing out of the window when travelling

Approximately 30% of the population suffer with motion sickness. 5% will suffer to an extreme level including vomiting. Once children are able to put together the pieces visually, meaning they are aware that they are moving and able to see where they are going, then they become susceptible to the condition. Prior to this they will not suffer. This is why it is said that children over 2 are prone to suffer. Children of the age 2 up to 12 are the highest at risk.

Below are just a few tips for helping to reduce the sickness:

Drink lots of water
aviod greasy, fatty or spicy meals
dont eat too much
avoid alcohol the day before travelling
try to get some fresh air whilst travelling

A motion sickness remedy I had recommended to me can be found at http://www.motionsicknesscure.info .When you have experienced motion sickness once, you will not want to have to bear it again. Most people visit there doctor or pharmacist to inquire about motion sickness medication before travelling for the second time, in a hope of preventing it returning. To find some motion sickness tips visit my squidoo lens

Hayley Lou

Review of Laboratory Procedures in Insurance Medicine

While an investigation was being made into the mortality rates, there was also a review of the laboratory procedures being carried out. For this purpose the medical division called in the foremost experts in the field, Dr. Otto Folin and Dr. Stanley Benedict. These men devised new quantitative tests for glycosuria and albuminuria, which became standard procedure in medicine. In addition, the laboratory refined and improved methods of analysis of various substances in the blood. Dr. Folin developed a method of determining accurately the amount of sugar in a very small quantity of blood.

This method was eventually used in medical laboratories all over the world. Another interesting development was the use of x-ray procedures in solving medical problems of policies such as "life insurance quote without medical." This revolved primarily around the use of the fluoroscope, an x-ray device through which the physician can "see" instantly the internal structures of the body. Fluoroscopy was first taken up by the medical division as an efficient and inexpensive method of detecting early tuberculosis in applicants for employment and in company employees at the home office.

Studies of various abnormalities of the lungs disclosed in these examinations helped the company's doctors to determine their significance, and as a result some abnormalities, such as healed childhood tuberculosis, were proved to have no adverse effect on longevity. Insurance practices were consequently revised in the light of these findings. X-ray films were also extensively used in examinations of the heart and lungs. The determination of the nature and extent of cardiac enlargement by the usual methods of examination was, in some respects, a "rule of thumb" affair.

An x-ray film of the chest, however, yielded more accurate information on the size of the heart and often disclosed other valuable details regarding that organ. Consequently its use, when a heart abnormality was present or suspected, resulted in providing a more accurate and fairer judgment than would otherwise have been possible. Here again observations on home office employees giving different types of life insurance quotes expedited the development of standards for insurance and general use. The investigation of heart impairments had special interest for those concerned with medical selection in the Metropolitan.

In 1899 the company began to insure persons with certain types of heart murmurs, issuing policies in the special class branch to these applicants. As there was no mortality experience to go by, the decision to accept such risks was made on the basis of clinical judgment. In the aggregate, the mortality experience on these heart cases proved to be within the expected limits. Periodic studies proved, however, that some types of heart murmurs were insignificant abnormalities, while others were of such seriousness that persons so impaired were not insurable at all. New procedures that followed for diagnosing heart disease were also useful in insurance medicine.

One of the most important of these was electrocardiography, which was of prime value in detecting diseases of the heart muscle. Prior to the use of this technique in insurance examinations (for life insurance rates and quotes) little distinction could be made with respect to applicants with such disorders. The development of electrocardiography, however, made it possible to identify some cases of serious heart disease that would not ordinarily be picked up by the usual physical examination.

While the normal pattern of the electrocardiogram was defined in broad outlines, there were numerous deviations the nature and significance of which were obscure for many years to follow. In the accumulation of data for the solution of these problems the insurance companies, and particularly the Metropolitan, laid foundations for future scientific advances which would prove of great value not only in insurance medicine but also in general practice.

Allison Ryan is a freelance writer specializing in life insurance rates and types of life insurance, as well as the history of the insurance industry. For a free life insurance quote without medical, check out http://www.equote.com/.