Here's a quote put up over at FRK:
May. 19th, 2010 10:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
conuly
Come on, the world is a way scarier place than it was when we were kids.
In the ’20s, moms let kids play in the street while they cleaned. In the ’60s, kids went out in the morning and bounced around all day playing Ringolevio.
These days, kids get snatched off the street and people try to bomb Times Square and the Herald Square subway station.
I said something about it there, but I'll say it again here:
Back in the 20s? There were pedophile scares then. It's not like child molesters suddenly appeared 20 years ago.
Back in the 20s? If your kid got a cut on the street and it got infected? There was no penicillin! Your kid might lose that limb, or even die. I hate those commercials for Neosporin which show people putting antibiotics willy-nilly on every little scrape and cut, but when there weren't any at all, that was no joke! Why do you think people started overusing antibiotics in the first place? They were thrilled people wouldn't die of these diseases anymore!
Back in the 20s we'd just finished the War to End All Wars, which was rapidly followed up by The Great Flu Epidemic - that's the same epidemic people are *still* scared of. Very few people alive nowadays know anybody who died back then, and we laugh about flu vaccines, but there's a real reason governments and scientists are working overtime to keep this from showing up ever again. (Not sure the resulting hype is a good thing, no, but I know why it's there.) We were starting to get those polio scares - my mother remembers those.
I don't know if anybody really felt particularly safe. They just lived.
There were bombings in the 20s, too. I remember reading about one in Manhattan, some Italian socialists bombed something, I think a bank, with - of all things! - a car bomb! (Or a horse-drawn carriage bomb, actually.)
In the 60s? Well, in the 60s you didn't let your kids go to Times Square, first off.
But in the 60s we were living under the threat of the Cold War. We had just finished the Second World War, with the Holocaust and all. There was a constant threat of nuclear bombs at any minute. There were riots.
The 70s and 80s, when most of these people making these comments grew up, were actually scary. (This is probably why they're so freaky paranoid now - when they grew up in a dangerous, scary world, they're inclined to think that it's kept on getting scary. Silly, but there it is.) There was that new scary disease, AIDS. There was still that threat of nuclear war. There were serial killers - my mother claims to have actually met Son of Sam, but declined to go home with him. (Good thing, too!) There were bombings in subways, yes, really. There was terrorism. There was a genuinely high crime rate. There was that Satanic Ritual Abuse scare, which is STILL terrifying people on two fronts - either they're scared it'll happen to their kids (I know, it never really happened) or they're scared they'll be accused of doing it to somebody's kids.
We're now at a 30 year LOW in crime. This is all over the nation, not just New York. (And some of these crimes have always been rare. Abduction and rape by a stranger? Never common - most rapes, of children and otherwise, are by people you know. Bombings? Never common, thankfully.)
What's really funny is people want to live in some idyllic time in the past when "things were better", but they're so caught up in what actually was going on in the past, in their own childhood, that they can't see that things are better now. They're scared of the crimes and problems that happened *then*, even as they say the world is scarier *now*. It's not scarier now! THEN it was scary. Now... not so much.
But they're living in the past, and they WANT to live in the past they've made as well. Convincing them to live in the present (and to want to) is close to impossible.
In the ’20s, moms let kids play in the street while they cleaned. In the ’60s, kids went out in the morning and bounced around all day playing Ringolevio.
These days, kids get snatched off the street and people try to bomb Times Square and the Herald Square subway station.
I said something about it there, but I'll say it again here:
Back in the 20s? There were pedophile scares then. It's not like child molesters suddenly appeared 20 years ago.
Back in the 20s? If your kid got a cut on the street and it got infected? There was no penicillin! Your kid might lose that limb, or even die. I hate those commercials for Neosporin which show people putting antibiotics willy-nilly on every little scrape and cut, but when there weren't any at all, that was no joke! Why do you think people started overusing antibiotics in the first place? They were thrilled people wouldn't die of these diseases anymore!
Back in the 20s we'd just finished the War to End All Wars, which was rapidly followed up by The Great Flu Epidemic - that's the same epidemic people are *still* scared of. Very few people alive nowadays know anybody who died back then, and we laugh about flu vaccines, but there's a real reason governments and scientists are working overtime to keep this from showing up ever again. (Not sure the resulting hype is a good thing, no, but I know why it's there.) We were starting to get those polio scares - my mother remembers those.
I don't know if anybody really felt particularly safe. They just lived.
There were bombings in the 20s, too. I remember reading about one in Manhattan, some Italian socialists bombed something, I think a bank, with - of all things! - a car bomb! (Or a horse-drawn carriage bomb, actually.)
In the 60s? Well, in the 60s you didn't let your kids go to Times Square, first off.
But in the 60s we were living under the threat of the Cold War. We had just finished the Second World War, with the Holocaust and all. There was a constant threat of nuclear bombs at any minute. There were riots.
The 70s and 80s, when most of these people making these comments grew up, were actually scary. (This is probably why they're so freaky paranoid now - when they grew up in a dangerous, scary world, they're inclined to think that it's kept on getting scary. Silly, but there it is.) There was that new scary disease, AIDS. There was still that threat of nuclear war. There were serial killers - my mother claims to have actually met Son of Sam, but declined to go home with him. (Good thing, too!) There were bombings in subways, yes, really. There was terrorism. There was a genuinely high crime rate. There was that Satanic Ritual Abuse scare, which is STILL terrifying people on two fronts - either they're scared it'll happen to their kids (I know, it never really happened) or they're scared they'll be accused of doing it to somebody's kids.
We're now at a 30 year LOW in crime. This is all over the nation, not just New York. (And some of these crimes have always been rare. Abduction and rape by a stranger? Never common - most rapes, of children and otherwise, are by people you know. Bombings? Never common, thankfully.)
What's really funny is people want to live in some idyllic time in the past when "things were better", but they're so caught up in what actually was going on in the past, in their own childhood, that they can't see that things are better now. They're scared of the crimes and problems that happened *then*, even as they say the world is scarier *now*. It's not scarier now! THEN it was scary. Now... not so much.
But they're living in the past, and they WANT to live in the past they've made as well. Convincing them to live in the present (and to want to) is close to impossible.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Antiseptics of the previous millennia
Date: 2010-05-19 08:49 pm (UTC)Not. Hello; back in the 20's they put Mercurochrome willy-nilly on every little scrape and cut. My mother didn't, though; she used tincture of iodine (http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Use-of-Iodine-in-Wound-Care&id=1952371), which stung like fire but worked as advertised:
"Given the growing concern over the rise of antibiotic-resistant organisms, cadexomer iodine is an effective alternative for the treatment of chronic wounds. Reports of resistance to iodine are scarce, despite the fact that iodine has been in use for over 150 years. Cadexomer iodine can be safely used on most patients (providing they are not sensitive to iodine itself) and provides good coverage of bacteria, mycobacterium, fungi, and protozoa, as well as being effective against MRSA."
Since the time of the ancient Greeks, probably long before, it's been known that when infection sets in, the way to cure it is to boil up a pot of water with a handful of salt, sop in a folded rag, and slap it on the wound, hot enough to almost burn but not quite. Some thyme in the water after it's boiled also helps, but it's mostly just the heat and salt that pulls the infection out. Janet Swisshelm (http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAswisshelm.htm), a Civil War nurse, writes of routinely curing advanced cases of pyemia with nothing but hot compresses.
Re: Antiseptics of the previous millennia
Date: 2010-05-19 08:54 pm (UTC)Re: Antiseptics of the previous millennia
Date: 2010-05-20 12:04 am (UTC)Mercurochrome contains mercury, which is why you can't get it in this country any more, and why it's probably not the best choice for anyone who might be hypersensitive to mercury for any reason, but it does work just fine to disinfect a wound. Time was, mercurochrome and and iodine were as ubiquitous in everybody's first-aid kit, as antibiotic ointment is now.
The big problem they had in the Civil War hospitals was that although they did (sort of) grok the germ theory of disease, they had no concept of antiseptic surgery (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiseptic#Usage_in_surgery) yet. The hospitals and surgeries were horrifyingly pathogenic, over-crowded with the terribly sick and wounded, under-staffed and under-supplied. They did have carbolic acid and bromine for disinfectants, but not large supplies of them, and those are harshly caustic on flesh. They also used apple cider vinegar (http://www.apple-cider-vinegar-benefits.com/vinegar-as-a-disinfectant.html), which [Bad username or site: http://www.care2.com/greenliving/vinegar-kills-bacteria-mold-germs.html @ livejournal.com]kills germs as well as those new-fangled store-bought sprays.
The problem was 'too little, too late' - they had to triage; the doctors left alone the soldiers who'd probably die anyway, and those who'd probably get better anyway, and focused on saving the lives they could save, mostly by amputating gangrenous limbs. If those who should've gotten better on their own got worse instead, a minor infection could blossom into a lethal one in mere hours. That's why Janet Swisshelm writes that she considers 'piemia' (bacterial infection) to be just another name for 'neglect'.
The nurses of the Civil War made an incredible contribution to the practice of medicine. Due to the nature of that war, all the bits of healing-lore that all the womenfolk had got swapped around and shared, from the classical literary and scientific knowledge of the refined ladies to the herb-lore and bare-bones techniques of the witch-wives and conjure-women, because practically every adult female East of Kansas was nursing someone deathly ill and/or grieviously wounded, and all networking together to pass along any tips that might help.
It was the nurses who figured out the importance of cleanliness, warmth, fresh air, good food and emotional support in saving lives: clear evidence that it isn't all about the germs; it's also about the immune system. :)