Editorial Staff
The New York Times chronicled milestones in medical technology that influenced generations to come. In chronological order, it dealt with inventions that have had a great influence on saving humanity by becoming a medical technology directly in the field of physiology and medicine in the last nearly 1,000 years from the mid-13th century to the modern times.
Among the milestones there is one invention of Benjamin Franklin, a renowned American politician and chemist. Franklin made a flexible tube by connecting metal segments together for his brother who suffered from bladder stones, and it replaced the urethra. It was the first urethral catheter. Now the catheter has developed to a level that it can replace all tubes in the human body. Franklin’s sincere heart to help ease the pain of his brother eventually helped many patients.
If one tool is representative of a healthcare professional, it is the stethoscope. Doctors originally listened to the sound of their patients’ lungs or hearts to examine them by placing their ears directly on the patient’s body. However, doctors could not hear the sound well, and there was privacy issue. A doctor named René Laennec was thinking how to examine his patients well by listening to the rhythm of his patients’ hearts precisely. Then he saw children playing with a long stick to send signals to each other’s ears, and he came upon an idea to create a hollow wooden cylinder.
The New Covenant established by God is also the result of God’s love and earnest desire to save humanity. God’s love for us is incomparable, and we are His utmost concern. God gave us the truth of life to free us from the chains of death, so we are given the Kingdom of Heaven and the blessing of eternal life, which we could never dare to hope or to receive. Now it is our turn to care about the salvation of other people and preach the New Covenant with a heart of love.