Health
Discover facts about health. Small discoveries that change the way you see familiar things.
Health
The nurse who invented the modern crash cart
Before 1965, crucial emergency tools were scattered across rooms, and staff had to fetch them during a crisis. A nurse’s red trolley turned that search into a…
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Cotton swabs were once sold as Baby Gays
In the 1920s, Leo Gerstenzang sold his cotton swabs under the name Baby Gays. The product was eventually renamed, leaving an old-fashioned bit of branding…
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An injury record can identify who caused it as well as what happened
ICD-10-CM includes external-cause categories and, for confirmed abuse, codes describing the perpetrator's relationship to the patient, including a sibling.…
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Even laundry has a medical activity code
In the U.S. ICD-10-CM system, Y93.E2 records that someone was doing laundry when an injury occurred. It supplements the diagnosis rather than naming a special…
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Medical paperwork has a code for flaming water skis
The U.S. ICD-10-CM classification includes V91.07 for burns caused by water skis on fire. It sits within a wider system that records how injuries happened,…
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There’s even a medical code for a cow bite
There is a code for a cow bite because injury records need more than a general label like “wound.” The system can capture the unusual cause too—proof that…
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A Mexico City hospital has roots reaching back to 1524
Hernán Cortés founded the institution now known as the Hospital de Jesús in the early colonial city. Its buildings preserve a medical history stretching…
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Electronic device injuries have an official code
A phone or tablet can show up in an official injury code because some medical coding systems track the cause of an injury, not just the injury itself. The…
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There's a medical code for an unknown hoofed-animal bite
When a bite comes from a hoofed animal but the species is not known, medical billing can still classify it under a catch-all code. It is paperwork’s version…
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Surgeon literally means someone who works with their hands
The roots of surgeon point straight to manual work: the Greek cheirourgos means “hand worker.” It is an unusually literal name for a profession that now…
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There’s a medical code just for mobile home driveways
The code exists to make the recorded location more exact: a mobile-home driveway is not lumped automatically with every other driveway. That precision can…
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Falling off a horse has its own medical code
Medical records can use a specific code when a horse caused the fall, rather than grouping it with falls from other causes. That small distinction lets the…
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Psychological hardiness is a resilience trait
A hardy response to stress has three parts: stay involved, look for what you can influence, and frame the problem as a challenge rather than a threat. It is a…
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Humans are covered in as many hair follicles as chimps
A follicle count includes the nearly invisible vellus hairs scattered across your body, not just the dark hairs you can easily see. That’s why having roughly…
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Why you shouldn't split every pill in half
A pill that isn’t designed to split may not divide its medicine evenly, so one half might not deliver half the dose. Some tablets also rely on their intact…
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Some medicine capsules have livestock-derived gelatin shells
The capsule's shell may come from gelatin made by processing livestock byproducts such as collagen-rich tissue. That means the medicine inside can be entirely…
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Medicine needs binding ingredients to compress active chemicals into solid tablets
A tablet starts as powder, which would crumble if it had nothing holding it together. Binders such as microcrystalline cellulose help the particles stick when…
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Why you should never crush extended-release pills
An extended-release pill is built to let medicine out gradually. Crushing it can break that delivery system, allowing too much medicine to enter your body at…
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The rust-colored ingredient in your medicine
Some pills get their red or yellow color from synthetic iron oxides, stable pigments used in the outer coating. They help distinguish one formulation from…
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Compounding pharmacies custom-mix raw chemical powders
Compounding pharmacists weigh and blend active ingredients to make a medication tailored to a particular need, such as a custom dose or a formula without an…
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Orphan drugs are manufactured solely for rare diseases
A treatment for a rare disease may have only a small group of potential patients, making development harder to finance. Tax incentives and periods of market…
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Active pharmaceutical ingredients ship in cardboard drums
A drum’s rigid cardboard shell is only the outer layer of protection. Inside, two industrial plastic bags line the container and help shield the active…
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Medication guides are legally mandated prescription handouts
For certain prescriptions, federal rules require pharmacies to hand out a medication guide with key safety warnings and risks. It gives patients important…
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Why prescriptions start with Rx
The letters “Rx” trace back to recipe, Latin for “take.” Apothecaries saw it at the top of prescriptions as a direction to prepare or provide what followed.
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