There was a time when people carved the human figure and marble or would grieve and dipped it in a precious metal like gold or bronze.  Michelangelo's David might even be considered an example of man's attempt to sculpt the perfect person.

That was hundreds of years ago and today we are reaching a point where we can literally sculpt the perfect person while they are alive.  I'm not talking about anything macabre, I'm talking about the science of plastic surgery.

Today people have the option of going to a surgeon to have imperfections in the body corrected.  They can seek los angeles cosmetic surgery experts to help them correct or crooked nose or improve a smile or he raise harder and wrinkles and provide a net or talk or boost.

With the invention of the technique known as liposuction, and all of the advances that are made in this technique year after year and month after month, people can now scope their body to fit the mold and model in their minds eye.  People travel from many different places to have their figure or their body re-formed by the hands of a beverly hills liposculpture Doctor.

Within a short amount of time in a short amount of recovery they can go back out of the world literally a new person.

This type of concept would have been completely foreign to people hundred years ago.  Surgery in general was extremely risky a hundred years ago, and it would have been completely impractical and even dangerous back then to consider cosmetic surgery.  It's amazing what a hundred years can do for this particular science.  Surgery is still very serious and dangerous, but science and medicine have improved so drastically that the mortality rate for general surgery is nowhere near what it used to be and now doctors can even perform smaller surgeries with techniques that are becoming less and less invasive every single year.

Additional Articles from the Book of Medicine:

• Cholera Due to Impure Water
  
  

  Cholera Due to Impure Water. — among the remarkable outbreaks which goes to prove that this mode of cholera propagation is not at all uncommon, maybe mention the following, condensed from Mr. Simons eighth report as medical officer of the English privy Council, during the prevalence of cholera in England in 1865: A gentleman and his wife in the village of Theydon-Bois, and Essex, have been lodging at the town of Weymouth for two or three weeks, and returned home towards the end of September. On their way home they pass through Dorchester, where the gentleman was seized with diarrhea, vomiting and cramps, which continued more or less during the next day in the day following, when he reached his own home. During the journey to wife also began complaining of pains in the abdomen, which was followed by diarrhea and eventually by cholera, from which she died.

   

  Here’s the first paragraph from Wikipedia on Cholera which I’m providing just as a simple contrast in the information level known now versus 100 years ago…

  Cholera, sometimes known as Asiatic cholera or epidemic cholera, is an infectious gastroenteritis caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae.^[1][2] Transmission to humans occurs through ingesting food or water that is contaminated with cholera vibrios. The major reservoir for cholera was long assumed to be humans themselves, but considerable evidence exists that aquatic environments can serve as reservoirs of the bacteria. Vibrio cholerae is a Gram-negative bacterium that produces cholera toxin, an enterotoxin, whose action on the mucosal epithelium lining of the small intestine is responsible for the characteristic massive diarrhea of the disease.^[1] In its most severe forms, cholera is one of the most rapidly fatal illnesses known, and a healthy person may become hypotensive within an hour of the onset of symptoms; infected patients may die within three hours if medical treatment is not provided.^[1] In a common scenario, the disease progresses from the first liquid stool to shock in 4 to 12 hours, with death following in 18 hours to several days, unless oral rehydration therapy is provided.

  That contrast in detail and accuracy is pretty amazing in and of it self.  We live in an age where modern marvels in medical advancement such as the evolution from glasses to contact lenses to lasik corrective surgery demonstrate evolutionary and revolutionary change 3 times over. So it is no wonder that even when they were on the right track with a topic 100 years ago, the level of understanding was still exceptionally rudimentary.

• Another Case of Infection (Cholera Reference to teawater pump in London 1854)
  
  

  Another Case of Infection.-Another famous illustration is found in the history of the "tea water pump" of broad Street, Near Golden square, London, which during the cholera visitation of 1854, killed nearly 500 persons in a single week, in one of the fashionable localities of the city. It has long been known that water containing five or six grains of lime and magnesium to the gallon is much to be preferred for making tea to water of any other quality.  This is because the line precipitates the astringent matter of the leaf, yet does not interfere with the solution of the desirable constituents; and hence certain wells which have the proper proportion of mineral matter come to be valued very highly by persons of nice taste.

  

  The images represent a tea water pump in New York(left) placed over a natural spring (right) that had existed in Manhattan long before Europeans came to the colonies and helped create situations where cholera could break out. 

  This reference to the 1854 Cholera outbreak would have been relatively recent in the minds of many.  It would have only been about 60 years old at the time of this articles printing, however, when this book was first published, it may have been referenced when the epidemic was only 20 – 30 years old possibly.  In terms of recency or relevancy, we today might have a similar perspective on the massacre at Jonestown or the Kennedy killing.  It would have made a much bigger impression on people that heard the news than say a case of food poisoning resulting from a problem with popcorn machines or something in a bar or movie theater.

• Arsenic in Water
  
  

  Arsenic in Water. — arsenic, copper and mercury are rarely found in drinking water is in America, except in streams flowing near chemical works, or unless they are introduced designedly with some murderous intention. These metals may, therefore, be practically ignored in the consideration of water from a hygienic point of view.

  Last night, I was watching a rerun of Sweeney Todd, starring Johnny Depp. I mention it only because of the reference to Arsenic, which I believe was the poison that Todd’s wife (in the movie) took to kill herself while Todd was in Prison. The movie was set right around the time this book was written, and I suspect that a spouse going to prison back then for a ‘white collar’ crime was much more serious than today, when you could probably expect a wife to spend 2-4 years travelling around on Mediterranean cruises rather than taking arsenic to be done with the world.