I am positive that people were concerned about their looks a hundred years ago.  There were all sorts of different products designed to captivate people's attention and change their parents for the better, from her tonics beauty cream's and many other concoctions.

Back then people don't have the benefit of a strong FDA.  In fact truth in advertising laws were just in their infancy and starting to take hold.

Today we have the ability to change our appearance dramatically and drastically.  Modern medicine has evolved to the point that we have the ability to completely change and improve our parents.

To give you a good example you can take a look at plastic surgery 101, a website that provides a great deal of information about plastic surgery options and separates out some of the myths about plastic surgery from the reality.  In that regard medicine hasn't changed great deal from a cultural perspective.  Your everyday person still has a number of misconceptions about medicine and how it can be utilized, and medical professionals are still trying to help people sift through the differences between fact and fantasy.

The same website also offers a number of details on rhinoplasty, a procedure commonly referred to as a "nose job."  The site breaks down the distinction between a Beverly Hills rhinoplasty surgical procedure sometimes used for cosmetic purposes and sometimes used for reconstructive purposes.  The procedure is common enough today regardless of the purpose.  In fact I know several people that have had the procedure done for both reasons.  I've even had to family members of had rhinoplasty following procedures to correct deficiencies in their nasal passages.

The reality is that there are plastic surgeons in very good plastic surgeons all over the world these days.  Some of the earliest and best set of practices creating an industry of Los Angeles plastic surgery, but that industry has grown across the country and is beginning to grow around the world.

These concepts will have been completely foreign 90 years ago in execution, but in concept and desire the human condition has not changed at all in 90 years just our ability to achieve our hearts desire.

Additional Articles from the Book of Medicine:

• Spread of Typhoid
  
  

  Spread of Typhoid.  — Sir William Jenner, than whom no higher medical authority could well be quoted, in commenting upon this point, says: the spread of typhoid fever is, if possible, less disputable than the spread of cholera by the same means; solitary cases, outbreaks confined to single houses, to small villages into parts of large towns, cases are isolated it seems from all sources of policy, and epidemics affecting the inhabitants of large though limited localities, have all united to support, either testimony, the truth of the opinion that the admixture of a trace of excrement, but especially of excrement from a typhoid fever patient, with the water supply for drinking purposes, is the most efficient cause of the spread of the disease, and that the diffusion of them lady in a given locality is limited or otherwise, and limited just in proportion as the dwellers in that locality to write their supply of drinking water from polluted sources.

   

  As we transition away from the topic of cholera and further into typhoid fever, it is apparent that the book draws a number of similarities.  Again though we see references to people that are quoted as authorities, however we have no other attribute nation to those people other than their given name.  One hundred years ago, there may have been few people with the name of William Jenner, I suspect that is no longer the case.

• Spring- and Well-Waters
  
  

  Spring- and Well-Waters.– Spring- and well-waters are almost always more or less impregnated with the soluble ingredients of the earth and rocks through which they pass, and are therefore sometimes very unsuitable for the ordinary ones of life. As a general rule, they are colder than other waters, although hot springs are found in various parts of the world, some with a temperature as high as the boiling point.

   

  Now unlike the last section, the section actually seems to describe one of the categories that has fallen into the varieties of water section. That said, the author does seem to mix and match two different categories together by combining springs with Wells. The obvious difference here is that a spring is natural and a well as to be done by a person. The author also doesn’t seem to take any consideration as to what might heat a spring, and from that perspective you once again have two doubts the scientific inquiry that has taken place within this section, like you might doubt a doctor prescribing legal steroids to a person is uninjured and planning on competing in the Olympics.

• How to Destroy the Breeding places of Mosquitoes Part 4
  
  

  How to Destroy the breeding places of mosquitoes.-every citizen should use his influence to have every village, city and state corporation appropriate money to eliminate all marshes by filling with soil, drain all stagnant streams and have kerosene oil spread on the surface of lakes, ponds or any other body of standing water, no matter how small. The object of using oil as to prevent the “wrigglers” and “tumblers” from getting air, for after leaving the eggs, they require air to develop. A film of oil prevents the “wrigglers” from getting the needed air and they are destroyed by choking. 1 ounce of oil is sufficient to cover 15 square feet of water. Oil should be applied and removed once a week during the breeding season. In standing water must be kept, screen the containers or keep tightly covered, so the females cannot deposit their eggs. Screen all doors and windows. But screams up early in the spring.

  So finally in the last paragraph the author drops a bombshell about who actually destroy mosquitoes. Surprisingly, the recommended procedure is to essentially contaminate and poison lake streams and cons with oil. While that recommendation might possibly stifle the development of mosquitoes, which I am actually somewhat doubtful about, it would also stifle the health of anyone that wanted to benefit from drinking that water or any animals for that matter. So this case the concept of position do no harm seems to trigger a scenario where this remedy is worse than the original problem, even though the author did not understand this concept 100 years ago probably.  Today, it is common knowledge and even a oil futures broker would be hard pressed to recommend this tactic.