Gratitude
December 4th, 2008 Posted in Biology, Health, ParanormalI’m stuck at home today feeling like death, with a splitting headache, fever, cough and sore throat. Fortunately, I went to see the doctor yesterday before it got too bad, so I’m all stocked up with medicines. At least it gives me the time to write a short blog entry (only short, I’m afraid, as my head is pounding. Fortunately, I’d already written most of this one, and it seemed fitting.)
Imagine you met a holy man who said he could cure people of cancer, could rid the world of smallpox and other nasty diseases, could double or even triple human lifespans, could massively reduce child mortality and improve all aspects of your general health. What would you say to such a man? If you’re not completely devoid of any intelligence, then you would surely accuse him of insanity (or, at least, of being a massive fraud). We know that such things are impossible for simple humans like ourselves.
But what if he actually could achieve all of those things. What if this man could cure all manner of lethal diseases, reduce pain and suffering, remove cancerous tumours, cure blindness? Surely you, and any sane human being, would follow him like a god?
But here’s the big question – what if that one man were, instead, hundreds and thousands of men and women spread across the world? What if, in short, they were doctors?
This is the amazing thing about the 21st century – we have all of these abilities under our control thanks to the wonders of modern medicine. We routinely cure diseases that only a century ago would have been unavoidably fatal for almost all sufferers.
Why not reserve the same reverence and gratitude that you would have lavished at the feet of the miracle worker I described earlier, for modern medicine? I can’t see any reason why not – yet all I seem to see in the papers is people complaining about how medicine is evil. That totally baffles me.
