Med Rib

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 21 September 2003
I must not surf the web.  I must not surf the web.  I must not surf the web.  I must not surf the web.  I must not surf the web.  I must not surf the web.  I must not surf the web.  Final exams tomorrow.  I must not surf the web.  I must not surf the web.  I must not surf the web.  I must not surf the web.  I must not surf the web.  I must not surf the web.
4:00:27 PM    

"Southern diarrhoea is only an excuse for Northern amnesia

As you read this page two events unfold: in the Northern hemisphere a child is born with a silver spoon in its mouth- his future assured thanks to incubators, ventilators, wealth, and family planning; and diametrically opposed to this birth another occurs in the Southern hemisphere where the silver was mined for that silver spoon.

This child, according to the stereotype must "Wait for his future like a horse that's gone lame- To lie in the gutter and die with no name." 

We assume that this death is from diarrhoeal diseases that we are all working, more or less efficiently, towards controlling- and we are pleased to blame non-human agencies for these deaths.  This model of our imperfect world does not stand up to scrutiny for two reasons:

- one is easy to understand (the diarrhoea was the mode of dying and not the cause of death, which was poverty) and the other is impossible to understand- we didn't just let him/her die.  We wanted him to die: in fact we killed him: in some cases literally.

Follow this well-documented thought sequence:

There are too many homeless children living in my backyard  à This threatens health and hygiene  à How do we deal with this? à Other threats to health and hygiene are vermin à Street children are a sort of vermin à Vermin need eradicating  à Let's shoot the vermin à Extrajudicial shooting of chilren - as occurred in July 1993 in Rio de Janiero.

Most 'ordinary decent folk' approved of the killings when they phone a local radio station as the events unfolded... 'I killed you because you had no future.'

[Lancet. 1998 Jun 27;351(9120):1955. If children's lives are precious, which children?
Summerfield D.  Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture, London, UK]

The point of all this is to illustrate that if we want to do something for chilren it is no good just doing something about the big killers, such as diarrhoea, and it's no good simply attacking poverty, for there is something dark in our human heart which needs addressing before purely statistical or biological interventions have a chance of success.  There is only one way of influencing human nature, and that is through dialougue.  So in this sense, the treatment of diarrhoea is dialogue."

Oxford Handbook of Clinical Specialities.  Chapter 3 Paediatrics. pg 187.


12:55:56 PM    

Neuroanatomy on the Web

 


2:39:53 AM    

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