![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
We've Come A Long Way, Baby
Dec. 28th, 2010 04:29 pmI'm watching an old movie from 1940, Dr Kildare's Crisis, with Lew Ayres, Lionel Barrymore and Robert Young. It was one of a about half a dozen movies in this series.
It's set in a hospital (of course) and it's funny how much medical science has changed in the past 60 years.
1. This is in the days before antibiotics were in use (or at least not in widespread use). Ditto for vaccines. They showed a patient who had meningitis and all they could do was pretty much cross their fingers an hope whatever medicine they gave him worked. They also showed a huge room filled with children undergoing physical therapy to strengthen weakened limbs.
2. A man in his 40s comes to see a doctor and when he tells the doctor that he plays sports with his sons and runs 5 miles a day. The doctor tells him to stop running and trying to play sports with his kids because it's bad for his middle aged heart(??!!).
3. This movie features a character, in his early to mid 20s, who would fluctuate between mania, deep depression and angry outbursts. He complained of hearing people crying and would seem disconnected from reality at times. The diagnosis: Epilepsy. The doctor goes on to emphasise the possibility that it is heredidty and that the patient's younger sister, (who is engaged to be married within weeks a few weeks in the movie timeline)and any subsequent children of hers would be at great risk of being epileptic as well.
The doctor tells the young man that he miust avoid any kind of stress or shock (so his career option would be severely limited) and he will likely end up insane.
Buh??!!
What a difference 60 years makes.
It's set in a hospital (of course) and it's funny how much medical science has changed in the past 60 years.
1. This is in the days before antibiotics were in use (or at least not in widespread use). Ditto for vaccines. They showed a patient who had meningitis and all they could do was pretty much cross their fingers an hope whatever medicine they gave him worked. They also showed a huge room filled with children undergoing physical therapy to strengthen weakened limbs.
2. A man in his 40s comes to see a doctor and when he tells the doctor that he plays sports with his sons and runs 5 miles a day. The doctor tells him to stop running and trying to play sports with his kids because it's bad for his middle aged heart(??!!).
3. This movie features a character, in his early to mid 20s, who would fluctuate between mania, deep depression and angry outbursts. He complained of hearing people crying and would seem disconnected from reality at times. The diagnosis: Epilepsy. The doctor goes on to emphasise the possibility that it is heredidty and that the patient's younger sister, (who is engaged to be married within weeks a few weeks in the movie timeline)and any subsequent children of hers would be at great risk of being epileptic as well.
The doctor tells the young man that he miust avoid any kind of stress or shock (so his career option would be severely limited) and he will likely end up insane.
Buh??!!
What a difference 60 years makes.
