How did we get to be so dependent on doctors?

During my youth in the late ‘40’s and early ‘50’s in rural Nebraska, seeing the doctor was limited to serious injuries and illnesses. Disorders that are so common today were rare then. Some of the “old” people had heart attacks and diabetes, but not many. Arthritis was probably the most common disorder and that, too, was limited to “old” people. Cancer was so rare that hardly anyone talked about it. I had hundreds of cousins, aunts, and uncles. Only one, maybe two, developed cancer.

Polio was the threat at the time. Even young people got polio. Polio patients were put in a machine called an iron lung to help them breathe. Those who lived had a physical disability, commonly a lifetime limp from a deformed leg. Polio was a virus, probably the first one that made the term “virus” part of our normal vocabulary. Today, we know the common cold is caused by a virus. We didn’t know that back then.

The solution to polio came from Jonas Salk, a South African doctor, who discovered a vaccine that protected people from the polio virus. I was vaccinated when I was eight years old, along with my other classmates. The vaccination was given to all students nationwide. That ended the threat from polio.

It probably was also a driving force to discover vaccines for many other illnesses.

Since my youth, the incidence of heart attacks, diabetes, arthritis, and cancer have sky-rocketed. So has our dependency on drugs. The nature of our food supply has changed. Chemical fertilizers have increased crop yield, and decreased nutrient content. Much more of our food supply is modified with preservatives and additives to be more shelf-stable and tasty. Many fruits are harvested before ripening. And low-fat foods have raised the sugar content of our food supply.

You don’t think that these changes could have contributed to the decline of our nation’s health, do you?