[lit-ideas] Re: Diabetes (paging David Ritchie)
- From: David Ritchie <ritchierd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2008 15:54:18 -0800
On Nov 17, 2008, at 2:23 PM, Teemu Pyyluoma wrote:
Blogger told this confirmed his suspicions, he had been convinced
by a pandemic researcher that there is something very wrong with
the picture we have of diabetes, because it is increasing faster
than obesity or other given causes. Now this reminds me of
something David wrote, and I believe studied, couple years ago.
As I recall, the subject was shell-shock and WWI. Point being that
it was primarily diagnosed in working class soldiers, while
officers had pathologies more fitting a gentleman. (It wasn't the
other way around?) Could it be the same with diabetes, obesity is
connected to social status, so it is by default assumed that any
lower class diseases have something more or less vaguely to do it
with how they live. (And if David's point was indeed the other way
around, this theses is going nowhere...)
With the one qualification that there was no single "it,"
--"shellshock" was a catch-all diagnosis--you have remembered my
point; because officers were regarded as being more trustworthy sorts
of people, their symptoms tended to be, I'll use an acting reference
though I don't want to imply that they were acting, "smaller."
Click on the third image at this site and you'll see a video which
has three sets of source: still photos of early plastic surgery and
skin grafts, video footage from Netley--these are British other
ranks, suffering from shellshock, video footage from a film about
German treatment of shellshock (the guy who looks like Dr. Caligari
is the identifying feature). I can't find video footage of
officers. WARNING: THESE IMAGES ARE NOT FOR THE SQUEAMISH.
http://technorati.com/videos/youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DYdUEBzeA_qs
My impression is that there is now agreement among historians of
medicine nowadays on what I and other proposed twenty or more years
ago--there is a cultural element at play in the defining of some
ailments. I write "my impression is" because I haven't been to a
conference in that specialty recently and I no longer get the Journal
of the History of Medicine. The thesis you propose may be worth
investigating.
David Ritchie,
Portland, Oregon
------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
Other related posts:
