Harte
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Re: Is it worthwhile?
This is true, but they have made very little difference in lifespans.
Is it worthwhile?
- Thread starter TimeWizardCosmo
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Re: Is it worthwhile?
It seems to me that you all are at times equating survival rate with life expectancy. For the sake of this discussion I would think you need to separate and define the two. Yes, penicillin has done wonders but its biggest impact has been on survival rate. If you,re 30 with a raging infection, it will give you the ability to possibly survive to see 60 or 70. It will not however guarantee it. You might die from viral meningitis at 45.
I think the contribution of medicine, at any point in time, has been to provide an individual with the opportunity to survive additional years. This is how I interpret Harte's statistic regarding cardiac patients. Having undergone a cardiac procedure 10 years ago (simple bypass) I can tell you that the doc never promised I would live any extra time. All he said is I would have a better chance at surviving.
I think this is really a matter of interpretation. One could make a decent argument that the industrial revolution was also a great contributor to longer lives as its development has mirrored the increase in expectancy. Possibly medicine hitched a ride on its coattails. Better living through chemistry and all.
As far as the greatest cause of death, accidental or natural, I'm going to go with birth whether the scientific journals admit it or not.
It seems to me that you all are at times equating survival rate with life expectancy. For the sake of this discussion I would think you need to separate and define the two. Yes, penicillin has done wonders but its biggest impact has been on survival rate. If you,re 30 with a raging infection, it will give you the ability to possibly survive to see 60 or 70. It will not however guarantee it. You might die from viral meningitis at 45.
I think the contribution of medicine, at any point in time, has been to provide an individual with the opportunity to survive additional years. This is how I interpret Harte's statistic regarding cardiac patients. Having undergone a cardiac procedure 10 years ago (simple bypass) I can tell you that the doc never promised I would live any extra time. All he said is I would have a better chance at surviving.
I think this is really a matter of interpretation. One could make a decent argument that the industrial revolution was also a great contributor to longer lives as its development has mirrored the increase in expectancy. Possibly medicine hitched a ride on its coattails. Better living through chemistry and all.
As far as the greatest cause of death, accidental or natural, I'm going to go with birth whether the scientific journals admit it or not.
Harte
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Re: Is it worthwhile?
Without the radical change in death rates of newborns, the calculations they do when they determine "life expectancy" would not have changed very much at all over the last 200 years or so.
And like I said, it's far easier to attribute this drop in death rates of people under one year old to improved sanitation and clean water than it is to any advances in medicine - including penicillin.
Harte
Without the radical change in death rates of newborns, the calculations they do when they determine "life expectancy" would not have changed very much at all over the last 200 years or so.
And like I said, it's far easier to attribute this drop in death rates of people under one year old to improved sanitation and clean water than it is to any advances in medicine - including penicillin.
Harte
StarLord
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Re: Is it worthwhile?
As in the washing of one's hands ofttimes made a difference in whether or not a patient survived the ministrations of the physician?
As in the washing of one's hands ofttimes made a difference in whether or not a patient survived the ministrations of the physician?
Re: Is it worthwhile?
I don't know about ministrations but I think the patient had a better chance of survival based on how the doc washed his hands, the kind of water he used and when he washed them.
Cleanliness is next to godliness, especially if it's next to your gallbladder.
I don't know about ministrations but I think the patient had a better chance of survival based on how the doc washed his hands, the kind of water he used and when he washed them.
Cleanliness is next to godliness, especially if it's next to your gallbladder.
StarLord
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Re: Is it worthwhile?
Harte posted: "This is true, but they have made very little difference in lifespans." That's kind of spiting hairs. With both Penicillin , Asprin and other drugs, one's life expectancy that we are born with and those drugs not being invented or used means your "expectancy" means naught, you be gone.
In regards to your statement using a 200 year period, that can not be accurate. Specific medicines that have been created in the last 200 years especially the ones dealing with disease that used to be a death sentence like Small Pox, Diphtheria, jeeze, look at the difference between 1850 and 1950's mortality rate with Polio, the list is extensive.
There is a great difference between what your genes say when you are born and can expect to live and the shit that hits the fan as you are living that medicine has changes the numbers drastically.
Back in the 1300's when the word ministrations came about, I'm pretty sure the patient invoked all kinds of sources of help, the physician, The Clergy, God and the comely chamber maid if he had enough ducats to spare.
I've often said myself that Mother's Milk leads to death. There are and always will be shitty doctors that have no right to the pigskin on their wall. Getting a second and third opinion and researching things yourself might always be a good idea.
Better Techniques, better non invasive equipment, radical change in the approach of how to fix a malady. Harte, Gl100, you may be old enough to remember many years ago when someone had knee problems and had to have it "opened up",it was not good news. Orthoscopic procedures saved many a person's ability to remain more ambulatory for a longer period than the old fashioned route.
Harte,
I think back to the machines we learned on for Echo Cardiology and the equipment that they have today, and the changes because of medicine wanting better equipment and the blessing of smaller and more efficient electronics. Would the fact that I was able to see clearly that you had a shunt due to a prolapse in one of your heart valves in combination with the use of a porcine valve allow you to live longer? Same thing goes for the invention of the Pace Maker and even better yet, the monitor that stores a few days worth of an EKG readings. How about the difference between the early EKG machine that had just a few leads compared with the machine that has a 12 lead and the found spot behind the back that would pick up very hard to see electrical conduction problem? Here's a honest teaching example back when the early Echo Machines were some what "fuzzy" if I can use the term. A lady was in after her doctor ordered up an Echo to be done, lucky for her she had an excellent tech that knew waht he was viewing was a thrombus rotating in one of her chambers, let that sucker turn into thrombi and all hell would break loose. They took her straight in to the OR.
Same idea with a Bypass, after the advent of the Stent, many a folk didn't have to go the way of replacing the conduit with something stolen from your leg.
Modern Medicine has a direct bearing on how long you can live. It has nothing to do with how long you are supposed to live in a perfect environment where your system runs at 100% peak efficiency being unharmed by what you have consumed un-ravaged by the environment.
Life expectancy sans stupidity, war and accidents go hand in hand with one's lifestyle. It all goes back to my original point, the patient has the ability to become his own best physician. You have the choice to clog your system with all that good tasting food and "Fun Stuff" or not.
The Chinese are about 4,500 years ahead of the western world when it comes to medicine. So too for the Indians who came up with Ayurveda. Herbal remedies are as old as the plants that have been growing. You may also be aware that 90 some % of the medicine we take have an Herbal base to them.
We now know that we can change our DNA through diet. We can also change our DNA in other ways. Which brings us full circle to the original OP. We have the ability to make a change in more than a few things that were once thought as being set in stone. Our health, How our thoughts affect our body before, during and after being sick and what we can experience on different levels of observation is directly controlled by our state of consciousness. It specifically why I brought up Dr. Deepak Chopra's name, as he's one of the first well know doctors that has approached medicine from may avenues at the same time.
Harte posted: "This is true, but they have made very little difference in lifespans." That's kind of spiting hairs. With both Penicillin , Asprin and other drugs, one's life expectancy that we are born with and those drugs not being invented or used means your "expectancy" means naught, you be gone.
In regards to your statement using a 200 year period, that can not be accurate. Specific medicines that have been created in the last 200 years especially the ones dealing with disease that used to be a death sentence like Small Pox, Diphtheria, jeeze, look at the difference between 1850 and 1950's mortality rate with Polio, the list is extensive.
There is a great difference between what your genes say when you are born and can expect to live and the shit that hits the fan as you are living that medicine has changes the numbers drastically.
Back in the 1300's when the word ministrations came about, I'm pretty sure the patient invoked all kinds of sources of help, the physician, The Clergy, God and the comely chamber maid if he had enough ducats to spare.
I've often said myself that Mother's Milk leads to death. There are and always will be shitty doctors that have no right to the pigskin on their wall. Getting a second and third opinion and researching things yourself might always be a good idea.
Better Techniques, better non invasive equipment, radical change in the approach of how to fix a malady. Harte, Gl100, you may be old enough to remember many years ago when someone had knee problems and had to have it "opened up",it was not good news. Orthoscopic procedures saved many a person's ability to remain more ambulatory for a longer period than the old fashioned route.
Harte,
I think back to the machines we learned on for Echo Cardiology and the equipment that they have today, and the changes because of medicine wanting better equipment and the blessing of smaller and more efficient electronics. Would the fact that I was able to see clearly that you had a shunt due to a prolapse in one of your heart valves in combination with the use of a porcine valve allow you to live longer? Same thing goes for the invention of the Pace Maker and even better yet, the monitor that stores a few days worth of an EKG readings. How about the difference between the early EKG machine that had just a few leads compared with the machine that has a 12 lead and the found spot behind the back that would pick up very hard to see electrical conduction problem? Here's a honest teaching example back when the early Echo Machines were some what "fuzzy" if I can use the term. A lady was in after her doctor ordered up an Echo to be done, lucky for her she had an excellent tech that knew waht he was viewing was a thrombus rotating in one of her chambers, let that sucker turn into thrombi and all hell would break loose. They took her straight in to the OR.
Same idea with a Bypass, after the advent of the Stent, many a folk didn't have to go the way of replacing the conduit with something stolen from your leg.
Modern Medicine has a direct bearing on how long you can live. It has nothing to do with how long you are supposed to live in a perfect environment where your system runs at 100% peak efficiency being unharmed by what you have consumed un-ravaged by the environment.
Life expectancy sans stupidity, war and accidents go hand in hand with one's lifestyle. It all goes back to my original point, the patient has the ability to become his own best physician. You have the choice to clog your system with all that good tasting food and "Fun Stuff" or not.
The Chinese are about 4,500 years ahead of the western world when it comes to medicine. So too for the Indians who came up with Ayurveda. Herbal remedies are as old as the plants that have been growing. You may also be aware that 90 some % of the medicine we take have an Herbal base to them.
We now know that we can change our DNA through diet. We can also change our DNA in other ways. Which brings us full circle to the original OP. We have the ability to make a change in more than a few things that were once thought as being set in stone. Our health, How our thoughts affect our body before, during and after being sick and what we can experience on different levels of observation is directly controlled by our state of consciousness. It specifically why I brought up Dr. Deepak Chopra's name, as he's one of the first well know doctors that has approached medicine from may avenues at the same time.
Harte
Senior Member
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- 4,562
Re: Is it worthwhile?
There's a difference between lifespan, average lifespan and life expectancy.
Harte
There's a difference between lifespan, average lifespan and life expectancy.
Harte
StarLord
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Re: Is it worthwhile?
So What?
Modern Medicine has changed the numbers all the way down the line. Especially when you take the time to consider that what used to be several life threatening diseases never visit your doorstep and the major advents to less and less non invasive techniques. You also have to include the Modern Medical findings regarding Diet when it comes to being able to live as long as your DNA dictates. Information regarding Arteriolosclerosis, and Atherosclerosis, their causes and what each does to the body and how they differ didn't come from an 8Ball or the Ouija board.
The same goes for the realization that we are not trapped by our DNA and that we can change that DNA through diet.
DNA Is Not Destiny | Genetics | DISCOVER Magazine
Again, a product of Modern Medicine. Though just several years young, the manipulation of our body's DNA and the understanding of the various avenues to achieve that will show that we can also manipulate our lifespan thus "average lifespan" and life expectancy all in one fell swoop.
So What?
Modern Medicine has changed the numbers all the way down the line. Especially when you take the time to consider that what used to be several life threatening diseases never visit your doorstep and the major advents to less and less non invasive techniques. You also have to include the Modern Medical findings regarding Diet when it comes to being able to live as long as your DNA dictates. Information regarding Arteriolosclerosis, and Atherosclerosis, their causes and what each does to the body and how they differ didn't come from an 8Ball or the Ouija board.
The same goes for the realization that we are not trapped by our DNA and that we can change that DNA through diet.
DNA Is Not Destiny | Genetics | DISCOVER Magazine
Again, a product of Modern Medicine. Though just several years young, the manipulation of our body's DNA and the understanding of the various avenues to achieve that will show that we can also manipulate our lifespan thus "average lifespan" and life expectancy all in one fell swoop.
Harte
Senior Member
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- 4,562
Re: Is it worthwhile?
Life expectancy depends on how old you already are.
I don't have numbers in front of me but an example would be like when you reach fifty, you can expect to make it to 75.
Long ago, you wouldn't hit that number as soon.
A newborn could expect to live a year. Maybe two.
That throws off the numbers, as you can imagine.
Once clean water was established (and the horse shit swept from the streets, effluent cleaned, etc.) newborns could expect to live much longer.
Science established the need (and method for obtaining) clean water. Science might push the idea of what "old age" means further down the road. Medicine has not and apparently won't.
Harte
Life expectancy depends on how old you already are.
I don't have numbers in front of me but an example would be like when you reach fifty, you can expect to make it to 75.
Long ago, you wouldn't hit that number as soon.
A newborn could expect to live a year. Maybe two.
That throws off the numbers, as you can imagine.
Once clean water was established (and the horse shit swept from the streets, effluent cleaned, etc.) newborns could expect to live much longer.
Simply not the case, as I illustrated with the bible quote about "threescore and ten" years alloted to folks way back then.
Unfortunately, no cure, no truly effective treatment, even, for them has come from any Ouija board either.
That's science, not medicine.
Science established the need (and method for obtaining) clean water. Science might push the idea of what "old age" means further down the road. Medicine has not and apparently won't.
Harte