The Ancient Greek physician Hippocrates is known as the 'Father of Medicine'
He developed the 'Hippocratic Oath' for Physicians, still in use today.
It's believed he detected certain diseases in his patients, by smelling them.
Which is not unlike very modern Medical Practises today, except they use an Electronic machine to do the smelling.
This is because certain bacterias, and infections create unique smells.
Examples are
- a sweat fruity breath could mean Diabetes.
- a fishy smelling breath could mean Liver disease.
- A urine smell (from ones mouth) might mean Kidney disease.
- a tar like smell could mean Tuberculosis.
a few Dogs have been trained to sniff and sit beside the patient in Hospital,when they smell Cancer on that person.
Unfortunately, the Electronic Machines that have been developed to sniff out diseases are very expensive,
in the order $17,000 each....so there are only two or three around.
But now another very powerful smeller has joined the diagnostic force.
Its the large friendly African Pouch Rat. They are very clever, and have been trained to sniff out Mines
in a minefield. Upon finding a Mine they stop, paw the ground over a Mine, and will come back to their handler for a food reward, when called. They are too light to set off an explosive.
Now they are being trained by the dozens, since it has been found out that they can detect all the above diseases in seconds.
The Hospital Doctors place a drop of a suspected patients sputum in a glass tube.
The various tubes are then placed in a metal holder that takes 24 tubes at a time. The tubes are open to the air, but have gauze placed over them.
The African Rat runs along the tubes and points out all the different diseases within seconds....to his minder.
In many cases the Hospital X-Ray, or the Blood technician may take days, and still not be sure they have detected anything.
Rats have for too long been categorized as useless vermin, but they have been found to have more genetic material allocated to the olfaction [smelling] part of their brain, relative any other species.
The African Pouch Rat seem's happy to work alongside humans, make great pets, they are very loyal and will follow you around.
With a new person in the World being affected by Tuberculosis every second, and with every person affecting 15 others per year, by droplets or sneezing......I think we may be hearing more of these trained Pouch Rats shortly.
http://bodyodd.nbcnews.com/_news/2010/08/13/4879912-dog-sized-rats-sniff-out-tb-in-patientshttp://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=trained-rats-sniff-out-tb-10-12-15http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UcA8V_EEx0 http://www.apopo.org/en/tuberculosis-detection/how/training
