More library fun.
I'm not the kind of person who puts a whole lot of stock in "alternative medicine," or anything like that, so bear this in mind when reading the following.
We as people for the most part entrust doctors with our lives. The assumption tends to be that these people are trained to diagnose and treat our ailments and maladies, and that with their help we will live happy, healthy, full lives.
This has a lot to do, I believe, with the shift in medicine and science in general after the Age of Enlightenment (17th to 18th centuries, more or less, for those of you without an encyclopaedia.) Prior to that, medecine was more or less a mild form of torture, or at least like a pair of blind deaf people trying to screw: a lot of groping in the dark.
What I'm trying to say is that after the point at which humans finally realized a thing or two about natural science, and the practice of medicine became less, how shall we say, inquisitorial. After this shift, you notice a lot more medicines being offered in newspapers, more paneceas offering relief from headaches to ennui - and if you think about it, with the recent development of marketable anti-psychotics, we're still trying to cure the same things. But more on that later.
At any rate, this entire spiel leads only to one point: humans believe medicine is infallible. I know you might not, but most of us do.
There is nothing - absolutely nothing - that will make you lose faith in the medical profession quicker than working in a science library. While applicants to medical school are subjected to a slew of exams and interviews, there is nothing in the application process that attempts to determine the applicant's level of common fucking sense. This has made itself evident to me numerous times.
A few weeks ago, I got a phone call by a person asking about book requests. I told her that what I first needed was the barcode from her library card. Silence. I then spend the next, I kid you not, half hour explaining what a barcode is, how one locates it, its purpose in life, et fucking cetera. This person was licenced to practice medicine.
Then, later in the week, I am asked to help a patron find a book. We shelve some journals according to their title, as opposed to the Library of Congress or Dewey Decimal system. I don't know why, but we do. At any rate, this poor schmuck didn't quite understand the concept of "shelved by title," and apparently didn't know the alphabet so well; thus the task fell to me to get him his book. I looked at his library card - sure enough, an M.D.
Personally, next time I get sick, I'm getting a live chicken and bringing it to a Gulf coast witch doctor. At least there's theatre involved there.
I'm not the kind of person who puts a whole lot of stock in "alternative medicine," or anything like that, so bear this in mind when reading the following.
We as people for the most part entrust doctors with our lives. The assumption tends to be that these people are trained to diagnose and treat our ailments and maladies, and that with their help we will live happy, healthy, full lives.
This has a lot to do, I believe, with the shift in medicine and science in general after the Age of Enlightenment (17th to 18th centuries, more or less, for those of you without an encyclopaedia.) Prior to that, medecine was more or less a mild form of torture, or at least like a pair of blind deaf people trying to screw: a lot of groping in the dark.
What I'm trying to say is that after the point at which humans finally realized a thing or two about natural science, and the practice of medicine became less, how shall we say, inquisitorial. After this shift, you notice a lot more medicines being offered in newspapers, more paneceas offering relief from headaches to ennui - and if you think about it, with the recent development of marketable anti-psychotics, we're still trying to cure the same things. But more on that later.
At any rate, this entire spiel leads only to one point: humans believe medicine is infallible. I know you might not, but most of us do.
There is nothing - absolutely nothing - that will make you lose faith in the medical profession quicker than working in a science library. While applicants to medical school are subjected to a slew of exams and interviews, there is nothing in the application process that attempts to determine the applicant's level of common fucking sense. This has made itself evident to me numerous times.
A few weeks ago, I got a phone call by a person asking about book requests. I told her that what I first needed was the barcode from her library card. Silence. I then spend the next, I kid you not, half hour explaining what a barcode is, how one locates it, its purpose in life, et fucking cetera. This person was licenced to practice medicine.
Then, later in the week, I am asked to help a patron find a book. We shelve some journals according to their title, as opposed to the Library of Congress or Dewey Decimal system. I don't know why, but we do. At any rate, this poor schmuck didn't quite understand the concept of "shelved by title," and apparently didn't know the alphabet so well; thus the task fell to me to get him his book. I looked at his library card - sure enough, an M.D.
Personally, next time I get sick, I'm getting a live chicken and bringing it to a Gulf coast witch doctor. At least there's theatre involved there.