Deep Thought: Think or Be Damned?
Created | Updated Sep 9, 2023
[Spoiler Warning for those who haven't figured out after 24 years that we aren't a fansite: The following has nothing at all to do with The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. We aren't here to write fanfic.]
Deep Thought: Think or Be Damned?
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in 1899 and me in 2023. Ain't time travel grand? |
I have JUST witnessed this exchange on Twitter. (Twitter finds Reddit an enduring source for amused horror.)
Alexa Summers: Reddit incels on boobs.
[QUOTE][Name Redacted to Spare Blushes and Avoid Lawsuits] If you were revamping the human body and were to give boobs an actual useful function instead of just sex appeal, what would you have them do?
Response by JE Erickson: Increase. Public. School. Funding.
Further response by Pink Top Hat Books: Can't talk about (whispers) boobs (end whisper) in Florida public schools.
I was already going to talk about medical misinformation on the internet. This was just adding fuel to the fire. Turn on your computer and ask a medical question – I double-dog dare you. If you don't know your dealer when it comes to information brokerage, you.will.get.scammed. That sort of thing is hazardous to your health.
Before I go on, a quick word: you do know where to get reliable medical info online, right?
- The Mayo Clinic is a world-renowned hospital and research institution. Its level of expertise is about as good as it gets.
- The UK National Health Service. If you live in the UK, you probably rely on this site.
- Have an international question? You're not in the US or UK and want a different perspective on your healthcare options? Try The World Health Organization.
And you know to avoid sites that say things like 'this 10-minute routine known to the ancient Tibetans using ordinary household objects will insure that you live for 120 years and never suffer from erectile dysfunction, send 3 easy payment of $29.95 for full details,' right?
Right?
Now that we have that out of the way, I will get to what I'd intended to talk about, which was how medical misinformation is nothing new. We humans don't know as much about our own bodies and their workings as we think we do. Even the scientists don't know all that much, compared to what there is to know. This can be a cause for worry. But at least the reputable science folk know better these days than what I'm about to share with you.
Popular Medical 'Facts' Through the Ages
Thus, when there is an overflow of the bitter principle, which we call yellow bile, what anxiety, burning heat, and loss of strength prevail! but if relieved from it, either by being purged spontaneously, or by means of a medicine seasonably administered, the patient is decidedly relieved of the pains and heat. . .
– Hippocrates, 4th Century BCE
Got a fever? Don't feed it or starve it, just take a laxative, advises the ancient Greek. At least he wasn't blaming it on some god, like the Sumerians did.
In the case of similitude, nothing is more powerful than the imagination of the mother; for if she fix her eyes upon any object it will so impress her mind, that it oftentimes so happens that the child has a representation thereof on some part of the body.
– Some Rando, 17th Century, The Midwife's Vade Mecum
This is the mildest piece of nonsense I could find in this medical compendium/porn magazine. Oh, sure, now you want to read it. Be Gutenberg's guest. The buzzard who wrote this had the nerve to claim it originated with Aristotle, who had nothing to do with it. Yes, Aristotle claimed women had fewer teeth than men. I think he was afraid to ask Greek housewives if he could count their teeth. I know I would have been. But write this horror, he did not.
Another remedy for Hysterics, and for Colds.
This must be strictly attented [sic] to every evening, that is: whenever you pull off your shoes or stockings, run your finger in between all the toes, and smell it. This will certainly effect a cure.
– German American pow-wow doctors. See The Long-Lost Friend, or, True and Christian Instruction for Everyman, Containing: Wonderful and Proven Means and Arts, for Humans as Well as Animals, or read up on this Early American medical text in The Edited Guide.
Just last week, the US Army renamed a 76,000-acre military installation from Fort AP Hill to Fort Walker. What does this have to do with medical misinformation, you ask? As well you might. Thereby hangs a tale.
The US military have been busy renaming things because it occurred to many people that it didn't make much sense to be naming things like forts and ships and such after historical figures who fought for the Confederacy, which after all was a schismatic attempt at forming a breakaway country – and one which lost, to boot. AP Hill was a little peculiar – he always wore his red shirt into battle and was buried in an upright position, per his own request – but the reason he was being replaced as the patron saint of this major military training area was that he had led armies against the entity that is currently training there. Instead, the Army has chosen to honour Dr Mary Edwards Walker, Civil War contract surgeon and the only woman so far to have held the Medal of Honor.
In 1878, Dr Walker wrote a book, called Unmasked: The Science of Immorality: To Gentlemen. You can guess what it's about. I'm going to try and find something to share here that will get past the filther. . . sec. . .
The effects of this vice on men are numerous. The most usual are consumption, insanity, softening of the brain. . .
If you don't know what the vice is, I ain't gonna tell you on Hootoo. Anyhow, most of this book is just as ill-informed as the statement above, and its contents are much, much worse. Don't believe me? Read it for yourself. So, yes, Dr Walker is a feminist figure of importance in the suffragist movement. She was also just as eccentric as AP Hill. But she served heroically and was even a prisoner of war – and she did it all in her Bloomer dress.
Conclusion
Most of those nitwits on Reddit (and Twitter) need to update their medical reading lists. We recommend they start with the Mayo Clinic or their local library. Unless their local library is in Florida.
