The science of public health has evolved since the 18th century, when it focused on isolating the ill and quarantining those exposed to diseases to prevent transmission of infection. In the 19th century, the focus was on sanitation, especially separating fecal contamination from food and water. Living conditions improved tremendously as a result. With the understanding of infectious disease transmission in the early part of the 20th century, the focus shifted to immunizations and infection control.

The price increase soon had an effect. The Netherlands has an insurance-based health system, and in April 2018, Dutch insurers – who had been paying for 50 or so patients across the country to receive the drug – balked at the fivefold increase, refusing to pay. Patients unable to pay themselves would have gone without treatment, so Kemper – whose hospital was one of the treatment centers for CTX – stepped in.

Although widespread signaling across the brain appears to be impaired when people are under general anesthesia, there is evidence that certain areas – including the auditory cortex – remain responsive, suggesting that medical staff might be able to send suggestions and encouragement, while a patient is unconscious, to reduce their pain after surgery. Studies investigating this possibility are few, but Jenny Rosendahl, at Jena University Hospital in Germany, and colleagues have attempted to gather all the evidence to date.

In the 17^th century, Europeans who had not traveled overseas tasted coffee, hot chocolate, and tea for the very first time. For this brand new clientele, the brews of foreign beans and leaves carried within them the wonder and danger of faraway lands. They were classified at first not as food, but as drugs — pleasant-tasting, with recommended dosages prescribed by pharmacists and physicians, and dangerous when self-administered.

California led the nationwide charge in implementing the Affordable Care Act, including a provision in it that has helped a little more than 2 million more people sign up for the state’s low-income health insurance program known as Medi-Cal.But in spring, the Brown administration turned down a $6 million grant from the California Endowment (TCE) to keep those previously enrolled, as well as those newly enrolled poor people, on the insurance program.