Throughout history there has been no lack of prevailing wisdom. The bad news is that it has often proven to be more prevailing than wise. Authorities of the day held that the earth was flat and tried to ban the notion that the earth orbits around the sun.
Lest we believe that such errors are consigned to the distant past, we have only to look at the history of “modern” medicine.
It wasn’t so long ago that bloodletting was the cure de jour. Dr. Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, treated George Washington for acute laryngitis by draining nine pints of his blood in 24 hours. Washington died soon afterwards. During World War I, the US Surgeon General recommended drinking or dunking in tap water charged with radium. Dr. C. G. Davis wrote in the American Journal of Clinical Medicine, “Radioactivity prevents insanity, rouses noble emotions, retards old age, and creates a splendid youthful joyous life.” It wasn’t until the 1930s that crocks lined with radioactive ore that emitted radon gas fell out of fashion following the death of millionaire steel tycoon and US amateur golf champion Eben Byers. At the urging of his physician, Byers started drinking radioactive bottled water, consuming close to 1,400 bottles during a two-year period. He died horribly of radiation poisoning at the age of 51. But the medical establishment didn’t abandon the frivolous use of X-rays until the mid-1960s.
There are numerous other examples, many of which would make the latest Hollywood horror-slasher film look pale in comparison to the sadistic realities faced by some patients in the name of therapy. At a certain point it may dawn on us that today’s medical advice may be part prevailing wisdom and part experimentation cloaked in the mantle of authority. This is not a blanket indictment of medicine but, rather, a wake-up call. If all is going so well, why does the US spend a higher portion of its gross domestic product on healthcare than any other country and yet, by comparison, is ranked number 37 among the world’s health systems?
The question arises, will we be looking back at some of today’s practices, such as the widespread prescription of potent and toxic antidepressants and the all-too-common practice of drugging children diagnosed with “ADHD,” with similar disdain?
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