Thanksgiving, a day late
On a Wednesday afternoon in 1924, President Coolidge's two sons-John, 17, and Calvin, 16-played a game of tennis on the south lawn of the White House. Wearing shoes without socks was something of a fashion among teenage boys of the era, a fashion trend that has come and gone repeatedly in the decades since, probably because it dovetails neatly with the laziness and studied slovenliness of adolescent males.
Calvin played the game wearing sneakers without socks. Unsurprisingly, he developed a blister on his right foot. The blister got infected. Eight days later, he was dead from sepsis.
In 1924, no antibiotics were available, even to someone as privileged as the son of the President of the United States. No amount of power, no sum of money, could buy what you can get by prescription for a few dollars. Calvin's blister was eight years too early for the first commercially produced antibiotics. Keeping the wound clean and hoping for the best was pretty much all you could do in 1924.
The good old days weren't. Unless you are among the world's very poorest-say, a sub-Saharan African who labors every waking hour for a dollar a day-you live better than a king or queen did just a few hundred years ago. You have indoor plumbing. You have a dentist. You're on the freakin' internet. Would President Coolidge have traded away the White House for a bottle of antibiotics from Walgreens? Despite his chilly public image, the biographies I've read suggest the answer is yes; he loved his children intensely, as most people do.
The legend of President Washington's wooden teeth is well known. They weren't wooden-that's pretty well known too-but he had many pairs of dentures made because his mouth caused him constant pain. Washington didn't lose his teeth through simple 18th century neglect of dental hygiene; he'd been treated twice with mercury oxide-once for malaria, once for smallpox-which caused his gums to recede, loosening his teeth and exposing bone and nerve to the open air. He started losing his teeth when he was 22; when he was inaugurated in 1789, at the age of 57, only one tooth remained. Everything he accomplished was done through a cloud of pain and the laudanum he took to ease the pain. I consider Washington the greatest of our presidents, and his greatness is all the more staggering considering his lifelong pain, and his almost certain addiction to opium and morphine.
I'm 42, and I've seen huge advances in medical science in my own lifetime. When I was five years old, I had my tonsils out, and nearly bled to death. Tonsil removal was almost routine for children in 1972; now it's only done when truly necessary. All surgery, even routine surgery like a tonsillectomy, involves risk, and on some morning in 1972, I nearly became a statistic. When they wheeled me back into my room, my complexion was sheet-white, terrifying my mother, who rushed to my bedside to make sure I was actually alive. I'm very pale to begin with, being a Northern European mutt, but I'm told I looked more like a corpse than a kid.
To make matters worse, the surgery left me with some scar tissue that interferes with the proper function of one of my eustachian tubes, which is one of several reasons my hearing is poor. I don't blame my parents or the doctors for the surgery; it represented the best scientific and medical understanding available in 1972. When we learned better, we started doing things differently. Medical science in 2009 is far better than it was in 1972. I imagine 2009's medical science will look pretty primitive come 2046, which is good news for me because (if I'm lucky) I turn 79 in 2046, so I'll probably need every bit of what they come up with between now and then.
So what am I grateful for this Thanksgiving? All the stuff most people are, like friends and family, sure. But most of all I am grateful for now. I am grateful to live in 2009, not 1909, not 1609, not 1409 (oh, sure as fuck not not 1409), and not 2009 BCE. I am grateful to live in a time when change and growth is palpable, when more people live better lives than ever before, when a billion souls escaped starvation thanks to the Green Revolution, when a billion people escaped poverty in China, India, Russia, Brazil, and the other economic tigers of the modern day. I am grateful for now.
This isn't to say everything is peachy everywhere. Being an illiterate peasant sucks, and sucks even more if you live under one of the world's most deranged governments, like North Korea's or Zimbabwe's. But many of the world's poorest places are growing at a rate where a better life awaits them. And yes, even for rich westerners in 2009, very bad things can happen: you can contract diseases that can't be cured, you can get hit by a bus, you can find yourself in the crosshairs of war, a meteor might strike the earth, etc. Life has always been probability's loyal and obedient subject, but we've changed the odds, and we've created ever more space for ever more people to live lives in which they can pursue more than mere survival. We've developed resilient communication systems and distributed our knowledge widely. If a library burns down, we won't lose the knowledge necessary to build urban sewer systems or manufacture microprocessors.
The fact that very bad things could happen, but that we're more resilient than ever, makes me even more grateful for now.
Calvin played the game wearing sneakers without socks. Unsurprisingly, he developed a blister on his right foot. The blister got infected. Eight days later, he was dead from sepsis.
In 1924, no antibiotics were available, even to someone as privileged as the son of the President of the United States. No amount of power, no sum of money, could buy what you can get by prescription for a few dollars. Calvin's blister was eight years too early for the first commercially produced antibiotics. Keeping the wound clean and hoping for the best was pretty much all you could do in 1924.
The good old days weren't. Unless you are among the world's very poorest-say, a sub-Saharan African who labors every waking hour for a dollar a day-you live better than a king or queen did just a few hundred years ago. You have indoor plumbing. You have a dentist. You're on the freakin' internet. Would President Coolidge have traded away the White House for a bottle of antibiotics from Walgreens? Despite his chilly public image, the biographies I've read suggest the answer is yes; he loved his children intensely, as most people do.
The legend of President Washington's wooden teeth is well known. They weren't wooden-that's pretty well known too-but he had many pairs of dentures made because his mouth caused him constant pain. Washington didn't lose his teeth through simple 18th century neglect of dental hygiene; he'd been treated twice with mercury oxide-once for malaria, once for smallpox-which caused his gums to recede, loosening his teeth and exposing bone and nerve to the open air. He started losing his teeth when he was 22; when he was inaugurated in 1789, at the age of 57, only one tooth remained. Everything he accomplished was done through a cloud of pain and the laudanum he took to ease the pain. I consider Washington the greatest of our presidents, and his greatness is all the more staggering considering his lifelong pain, and his almost certain addiction to opium and morphine.
I'm 42, and I've seen huge advances in medical science in my own lifetime. When I was five years old, I had my tonsils out, and nearly bled to death. Tonsil removal was almost routine for children in 1972; now it's only done when truly necessary. All surgery, even routine surgery like a tonsillectomy, involves risk, and on some morning in 1972, I nearly became a statistic. When they wheeled me back into my room, my complexion was sheet-white, terrifying my mother, who rushed to my bedside to make sure I was actually alive. I'm very pale to begin with, being a Northern European mutt, but I'm told I looked more like a corpse than a kid.
To make matters worse, the surgery left me with some scar tissue that interferes with the proper function of one of my eustachian tubes, which is one of several reasons my hearing is poor. I don't blame my parents or the doctors for the surgery; it represented the best scientific and medical understanding available in 1972. When we learned better, we started doing things differently. Medical science in 2009 is far better than it was in 1972. I imagine 2009's medical science will look pretty primitive come 2046, which is good news for me because (if I'm lucky) I turn 79 in 2046, so I'll probably need every bit of what they come up with between now and then.
So what am I grateful for this Thanksgiving? All the stuff most people are, like friends and family, sure. But most of all I am grateful for now. I am grateful to live in 2009, not 1909, not 1609, not 1409 (oh, sure as fuck not not 1409), and not 2009 BCE. I am grateful to live in a time when change and growth is palpable, when more people live better lives than ever before, when a billion souls escaped starvation thanks to the Green Revolution, when a billion people escaped poverty in China, India, Russia, Brazil, and the other economic tigers of the modern day. I am grateful for now.
This isn't to say everything is peachy everywhere. Being an illiterate peasant sucks, and sucks even more if you live under one of the world's most deranged governments, like North Korea's or Zimbabwe's. But many of the world's poorest places are growing at a rate where a better life awaits them. And yes, even for rich westerners in 2009, very bad things can happen: you can contract diseases that can't be cured, you can get hit by a bus, you can find yourself in the crosshairs of war, a meteor might strike the earth, etc. Life has always been probability's loyal and obedient subject, but we've changed the odds, and we've created ever more space for ever more people to live lives in which they can pursue more than mere survival. We've developed resilient communication systems and distributed our knowledge widely. If a library burns down, we won't lose the knowledge necessary to build urban sewer systems or manufacture microprocessors.
The fact that very bad things could happen, but that we're more resilient than ever, makes me even more grateful for now.