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> I disagree with the characterization of medicine not being able to treat so many things. Many things are incurable but a lot of medicine/public health is so e
by the__alchemist 5y ago
> I disagree with the characterization of medicine not being able to treat so many things. Many things are incurable but a lot of medicine/public health is so effective we barely think about it. Of course we are going to notice and pay more attention to the things medicine sucks at treating, because they’re real problems that inflict a lot of pain due to the lack of treatment.
> But medicine is very good at treating plenty of things like infections (of many different kinds), traumatic/acute injuries, and many disabilities.
I agree that medicine is very good at treating infections and traumatic/acute injuries. Which disabilities are you referring to? Outside of these categories, what can we we effectively treat or cure? It seems to be very little.
- tuatoru 5y agoHip replacements? Cataract surgery? Disfigurements (cosmetic surgery)? - just off the top of my head. My own mother had "cosmetic" surgeries to re-set her toes which had been deformed by decades of fashionable shoes, and to remove varicose veins which are painful. Occasionally one reads about someone's hearing, sight, or power of speech being restored also. Maybe only a few things, but still affecting millions, if not tens of millions of people. I also think that medicine is a victim of its own success, in two ways. One, how many funerals of people in their thirties to fifties does the average person go to, these days, compared to say the 1920s? It's hard to see things that don't happen. Two, success breeds hubris which breeds a sense of being right whatever the evidence may say.
- the__alchemist 5y agoI agree on all of the above as useful as well.