{"id":3559,"date":"2019-11-24T02:30:03","date_gmt":"2019-11-24T02:30:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/?p=3559"},"modified":"2021-05-29T19:59:11","modified_gmt":"2021-05-29T19:59:11","slug":"health-care-directive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/health-care-directive\/","title":{"rendered":"Health Care Directive"},"content":{"rendered":"

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I’ve been completing a Health Care Directive. It will probably be this week’s least-favorite task. The form’s nine pages let me outline how I see medical decisions. And who I’d like to make those decisions for me if I can’t.<\/p>\n

Picking my primary and secondary health care agents was the easy part, thanks to my being part of a close-knit family.<\/p>\n

Making choices about organ donation, autopsy and what to do with my body after I’m dead wasn’t difficult.1<\/a><\/sup> But it didn’t brighten my day.<\/p>\n

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<\/a>Changing Times: Coffins, Cholera and Care for the Sick<\/h3>\n

<\/a>Options of Yesteryear<\/h4>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

My options would have been different in the 19th century. Different, but still unsettling.<\/p>\n

The era’s health care tech and assorted epidemics encouraged skittishness when examining possibly-contagious corpses.<\/p>\n

Waking up in a coffin was a real possibility.<\/p>\n

My guess is that odds for waking up in a body bag are lower these days.<\/p>\n

I’ve got mixed feelings about death.<\/p>\n

Ideally, “…life is Christ, and death is gain.” But I’m not in Paul’s league. There’s also my particular judgment, and I’ve wandered off-topic.2<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

Where was I? Health care agents. Family. Autopsy. Death. Right.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Reapers and Disease<\/h4>\n

<\/a>
\n(From Robert Seymour, via Wikimedia Commons, used w\/o permission.)<\/span>
\n(Robert Seymour’s 1831 impression of a cholera epidemic.)<\/p>\n

<\/a>Folks who figured that old ways are good ways probably didn’t like the 19th century. Or the 20th. Or the 21st to date.<\/p>\n

Scything and gathering grain gave way to mechanical reapers.<\/p>\n

We lost an ancient tradition, but harvested more food in less time.<\/p>\n

I figure that helped folks sidestep famines.<\/p>\n

I’ve also read that famines declined because capitalism replaced feudalism. And that bigger bureaucracies led to better food distribution. Then there’s the British Agricultural Revolution and Green Revolution.3<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

There’s probably a grain of truth in those assertions. And that’s another topic. Topics.<\/p>\n

As far as I know, nobody blamed the first cholera epidemic on Fulton’s steamboats or the Louisiana Purchase. Maybe because it didn’t spread beyond China and the Mediterranean.<\/p>\n

All of which happened shortly before 1817.<\/p>\n

Folks living in Bengal fingered Ola Bibi and Kali as being responsible.<\/p>\n

British troops got blamed for the Bundelkhand outbreak.<\/span><\/p>\n

Seems they slaughtered and ate cattle, which offended Hindu beliefs. On top of that, the incident took place in a grove sacred to Hurdoul La.<\/span><\/p>\n

My view is that blaming a deity for death, disasters and disease isn’t unique to my culture. (February 23, 2019<\/a>; September 17, 2018<\/a>)<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/a>John Snow’s 1849 essay showed that tainted water carried cholera. The powers that be promptly ignored the idea. (July 1, 2018<\/a>; July 21, 2017<\/a>)<\/p>\n

By 1896, we’d had the first through fifth cholera pandemics.<\/p>\n

Doctors and scientists eventually learned that humorism and miasma theory didn’t match observable phenomena. That was happening during the late 19th century.<\/p>\n

Well-established customs die hard, so bloodletting was an accepted medical practice until the early 20th century. That may help explain why American life expectancy didn’t get much above 70 until well into the 20th century.4<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

<\/a>Surgical Successes in the Sixties<\/h4>\n

<\/a>Fast-forward to the 1960s.<\/p>\n

The ‘old ways are good ways’ set were having conniptions.<\/p>\n

No cherished belief or institution seemed safe from scrutiny.<\/p>\n