High-ho, high-ho, it's back to school I go...

Classes have commenced once more. As an introduction to one of them, the professor has been discussing the discovery of x-rays and radiation in general and how they were originally (mis)used. People went nuts over this stuff. Radon was put in everything from drinking water to toothpaste to suppositories because people thought it was healthy. Radiation was used to treat acne and enhance fertility (oh, the irony...) and a million other stupid things that just ended up giving people cancer.

The really scary thing is that this is just the tip of the iceburg. The list of incredibly idiotic things human beings have done to themselves in the belief that it was good for them goes on and on and on. Draining out a good deal of your blood in order to drain out an illness with it? Been there. Cutting holes into the skull to fix the balance of bodily "humours" (or release evil spirits)? Done that.

It makes me wonder how the hell we managed to survive as a species in the first place. It makes me think about what we are doing now that will be shown to be stupidly unhealthy sometime in the future.

(Oddly enough, it also gives me a bit of hope in the increasingly frightening political landscape. If we can survive that shit, we should have no problem surviving Dubya.)

Seriously, though, if you want a good laugh, go read about the history of medicine.