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Margaret Anna Alice's avatar

“tsundoku”—I finally have a name for the lifelong condition I have suffered in tandem with bibliophilia and typomania!

Speaking of Semmelweis, have you read “The Doctors’ Plague”? It captures this tragic tale of medical malpractice by groupthink powerfully.

One mystery: The book refers to him as “Ignac,” yet many others use “Ignaz.” I have not had time to investigate the source of these alternative spellings and which is considered more definitive.

Unbekoming's avatar

No I haven't read that one, thanks for the tip Margaret, it will be added to my collection (tsundoku 😉).

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May 28, 2022
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Margaret Anna Alice's avatar

That’s what I suspected, and thank you for confirming!

Stegiel's avatar

In engineering the silent agreed justification for ignoring scientific advance is Not Invented Here.

Unbekoming's avatar

Yes, every industry would have its own "corrupting" and status quo mechanics, but I have this thesis, yet fully formed, that medicine is the gold medalist, that is it "the most corrupt" of all of them.

Stegiel's avatar

Scientific medicine as developed by Rockefeller money surely is very corrupt.

Watersnake's avatar

“…. how can the masses think clearly when none of the inputs are “true or likely to be true” anymore….” Sounds congruent with Big Agriculture’s assault on Nature. Hardly any of the inputs except sunlight (for the moment) are ‘true’ anymore: GMO seeds, dead soil, poisons and chemical fertilisers. Let alone processed food. It’s certainly FrankenFood. Our whole ‘modern’ culture is a simulacrum.

Unbekoming's avatar

Yep. I think back to the restaurant scene in The Matrix more and more every day.

https://youtu.be/vkvdAznoFqY

Watersnake's avatar

🤣 perfect summation!

Holly's avatar

Thank you. How can my eyes be opened any wider, yet they are. Again, thank you.

Unbekoming's avatar

I know the feeling. Every time I look under another rock I think "not again!".

Aaron Ferguson's avatar

Covid 19 and Dissolving Illusions have broken my previous misplaced faith in the 3 letter institutions....but we all operate our lives on some sort of FAITH no? Had we been following biblical law these last years...different outcome. Quarantines are permitted...for the SICK! Not the healthy. ‘Essential/non-essential work’? “Six days you shall work”, no such thing as non-essential. I could go on...as for washing hands....also a biblical prerogative.

Unbekoming's avatar

Agree. This is one of the most important essays that I read early on in Covid. I, like many, had totally underestimated the role of The Bible and Christina faith in keeping society from "going off the rails", and that we certainly have.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/weekly-standard/the-spiritual-shape-of-political-ideas

Aaron Ferguson's avatar

From that essay....”We live in a highly spiritualized age, I argue, when we believe that our ordinary political opponents are not merely mistaken but actually evil. We live with religious anxiety when we expect our attitudes toward social questions to explain our goodness and our salvation.”

We humans are inescapably religious. But contradictory precepts cannot both be true at once, so which “religion” is TRUE? Well none (including materialism) is provably true or false, but looking at the weight of history, which belief system has the most positive effect on human flourishing? (Which I’ll use as a proxy for “most likely true”) The question answers itself....

LP934's avatar

I think you're onto something....

PRIDE is one of the (so-called) Seven Deadly Sins

S. Nicoletta Rogers's avatar

"I had no idea that radical mastectomy was also a rotten part of medical history. How much bullshit can one “profession” carry?"

Have you heard of this one yet?

"Did you know, Doctor," I said, "that Blue Cross Blue Shield insurance paid for clitoridectomies in the United States until 1977?"

His shocked expression told me all I needed to know. That embarrassing chapter of medical history had been left out of his textbooks. Even authors of the most scholarly books about the history of circumcision don't know how long female genital mutilation endured in the USA. The history of female circumcision here has been a well-guarded secret, especially from its victims."

~ Patricia Robinett; The Rape of Innocence

https://a.co/do2hrln

S. Nicoletta Rogers's avatar

I highly recommend the book. It's an eye opener. Especially if you believe in bodily autonomy... which is DENIED to 3000 American newborn boys EVERY SINGLE DAY.

S. Nicoletta Rogers's avatar

The author.... an American woman... was mutilated TWICE herself by American medical doctors.

The BarefootHealer's avatar

There are many perfect examples, such as these and as mentioned in the comments re genitalia mutilation, within westernized allopathic medicine, of why alternative medicine practitioners, throughout the last few centuries, in various ancient medical systems around the world, have considered the westernized medics illiterate and unenlightened barbaric butchers! The arrogant, "hocus pocus", condecendingly secretive intellectualism of the westernised medical industry is horrendous. Its become an egotistical, compassionless cash register, not the empathetic art form that Hippocrates and Galen both envisioned.

Colin Brace's avatar

It's increasingly apparent that our supposedly superior Western societies are fundamentalist at core. despite all of the happy talk of rational discourse and the very thin veneer of supposed diversity and inclusivity. We cling so fiercely to what we claim to be "truth". It is a mindset that is supremely anti-dialectical.

Aaron Ferguson's avatar

Horrific. As one of those males denied bodily autonomy, who doesn’t know differently🤣🤣, I feel there is a difference between the two (m vs f). Not that I have data...