Winter Songs

Modern Medicine, cough cough

Back before the Internet era, before Cable TV and even before Eight Track tapes; there was a time when man was little more than an ape. If Gilligan is any example, then even eating Coconuts is a trait we kept well into the 1960’s.

During this time, when a caveman felt sick, he ignored it. Darwin called this ‘survival of the fittest’, I call this, “morons dragging a gangrenous leg and seeing the world thru one eye.” However, I digress.

Later, when mankind felt all grown-up, somewhat like a thirteen year old wondering why he can’t drive the car, a group of learned men called themselves Barbers. These barbers not only provided a close shave, but when needed, a blood letting or a leech or two to treat common maladies. Society frowned on people who had trolls living in their bellies, and so agreed that several hours of bleeding would be a small price to pay in order to restore health. Okay, so some people died… after all, it’s not like anyone expected to live more than thirty years anyway.

Today, of course, we ARE all grown-up. We know, for example that it’s not a troll in our belly. Science has come up with ways to diagnose, treat and eliminate diseases and ‘system breakdowns’. While many treatments require that we forgo our daily lives and egos…and check into a hospital, we are getting better and better at discovering that a tiny pill can solve problems. It’s this last point that has me baffled.

If you watch television, read magazines or pay attention to billboards etc, you are now familiar with advertising designed to motivate us to take pills. While we outlaw marijuana and other “BAD” drugs, we’ve become a society of pill poppers. It’s very much like that movie, “Westworld”; a not so futuristic world, where nothing can go wrong. Suuuuuuuuuure. So Vioxx was just a little ooopsy. I’m waiting for the day that all of the Viagra takers wake up one morning, a little beside themselves. Yes, these advertisements rush through a list of common side-effects. So treat your arthritis, but you may end up suffering migraines, liver failure, blood disorders and bad breath. Ah, but no problem, you can take another pill which will treat blood disorders, however it tends to cause memory loss, loss of consciousness and inner ear infections. No doubt, that when you treat all the side effects, you are far worse off than you were at the beginning.

I’ve no doubt that a few hundred years into the future, scientists will look back and view our methods in the same light as we see medieval medicine. Thank heaven I won’t be there to see it.