3 ms·
Medicine used to be, and in substantial part still is, a disordered heap of hypotheses relying on practical experience and relayed by the stars of the field. Th
by rscho 6y ago
Medicine used to be, and in substantial part still is, a disordered heap of hypotheses relying on practical experience and relayed by the stars of the field. There are plenty of strange examples throughout history. For example, we used to believe until not so long ago that infants couldn't feel pain (with all the 'interesting' consequences on practice you can imagine).
- myself248 6y agoI'm less than convinced that anyone sincerely believed that. It seems more plausible that it's a lie they told themselves to paper over other cultural, profit, or institutional pressure.
- rscho 6y agoOf course people believed strange things! As I said, the field is far from being hard science even today (am MD myself). What do you think "expert opinion" actually means? Well, just that... and the literature is full of such opinions driving many important guidelines for practice in the real world. As recently as 1999, it was commonly stated that babies could not feel pain until they were a year old.[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pain_in_babies#%3A%7E%3Atext%3DAs_recently_as_1999%2C_it%2Ccertain_age_can_experience_pain.?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pain_in_babies#%3A%7E%3Atext%3...