History of formation and development of laboratory diagnostics

Abstract

Clinical laboratory diagnostics is a medical diagnostic specialty that provides a set of studies of the biomaterial of the human body with the aim of further comparing the results with the data of a clinical examination and establishing a diagnosis. Thanks to laboratory research, practical healthcare has the opportunity to receive about 70% of the volume of objective diagnostic information necessary for the timely adoption of the correct clinical decision, the appointment of appropriate treatment, and subsequently ensuring control over the effectiveness of its implementation. The object of research in laboratory diagnostics is an individual, and the subject of research is the biomaterial obtained from him (saliva, urine, semen, blood, serum, cerebrospinal fluid, exudate, etc.) [3]. The history of the development of laboratory diagnostics has more than one hundred years. The earliest information that has come down to us, which can be considered a prototype of laboratory diagnostics, refers to Ancient Egypt. In the “Surgical Papyrus”, the information was found on the possible conduct of a visual analysis of biological fluids - this paper provides a description of the state of cerebrospinal fluid in injured patients. At the same time, the first mentions of parasitology appeared — there is an assumption that Muslims do not eat pork, as many years ago they discovered the presence of parasites in it. The work “Forecast”, which belongs to the pen of Hippocrates, contains a rather detailed description of the properties and macroscopic characteristics of urine, feces and sputum in normal conditions and in various diseases. However, the emergence of laboratory diagnostics as an independent branch of medicine occurred much later, at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.