How Great Were the Good Old Days?

Happy Days Cast

 Every week I get emails about how wonderful the fifties used to be--you know Richie Cunningham’s growing up years--when the world was simpler and people more trusting.   

And there’s even nostalgia about the generations before that when people stared you square in the eye and deals were sealed with a handshake.

 

Of course the sender admits there were drawbacks—the Great Depression and terrible wars, but nobody ever mentions those medical mysteries causing agonizing suffering and pain where only death brings true relief.

Charles Darwin

It seems everyone was affected:       

Charles Darwin (1809-1882) electrified the world with his theory of evolution but suffered from severe stomach pains throughout his life and threw up after almost every meal.  Some physicians thought he was a hypochondriac while other English doctors diagnosed him with lactose intolerance, lead poisoning, gout, and even schizophrenia.

A new interpretation suggests that he had cyclic vomiting syndrome, CVS, that started in childhood, and/ or Chagas disease, a parasitic illness now considered the cause of peptic ulcers.   If only he had known…

After suffering from severe hallucinations, insomnia, and anxiety, Vincent Van Gogh ( 1853-1890)  killed himself at 37.   Today medical professionals think he either had Meniere’s disease, an inner ear disorder, or agonized with bi-polar disease.

Florence Nighingale

Florence Nightingale (1820-1910), credited with starting modern nursing, was bedridden with depression and other ailments for thirty years of her life.

 

And there’s others--lots of people that could’ve been helped, like:  Jane Austen, Louisa May Alcott, Alexander the Great, even Lincoln.
   
And how about the rest of us folks?

Today we’ve learned that cancer is not the automatic killer it once was even in the nineties, and though we’ve been transplanting organs for years, we now use many animal parts and have begun manufacturing body pieces so that in the future the very ill will no longer have to endure the dreaded waiting lists. 

We’ve also discovered cell therapy to prevent organ rejection and stem cell research to increase immunity.  And this is only the start of things.

  

So it’s a trade-off.   Would we want to go back to the Richie Cunningham days and suffer the mysterious life-threatening illnesses or grab the modern amenities like computers and state-of-the-art health care and accept the messed up world as is?

The emails keep saying the fifties are the best.

Sure, I know we don’t have a time machine, but if we played this game, what would people choose?

 

Let's pretend someone’s deathly ill but can be made whole again in a hospital a few miles away.   If given the choice, would he choose to go back to the fabulous bobby-sock generation or lose sleep over el qaeda?

Yeah, that’s what I thought.

 

So keep those emails coming.  And I wish you a speedy recovery.