Piggybacking on FFS Fridays post from last week titled TNTC, AKA too numerous to count, I want to be clear on what happened to women in the past who did not have access to safe abortion care.
THEY DIED.
I want to be clear about what happened to children who did not received vaccines (they hadn’t been developed yet).
THEY DIED.
I want to be clear about what happened to everyday people who didn’t have access to quality healthcare.
THEY DIED.
I want to be clear about what happened to diabetics who did not receive insulin. This was in the before times when insulin resistance was not a thing.
THEY DIED.
Or they ate a horribly restricted diet under the guidance of a doctor. This was begun in 1915 and lasted until insulin was developed in 1922. The patients “lived” on 500 calories a day, with one fasting day per week. This was to keep their glucose in check. Or, knowing that this horrible disease was due to the patient not being to metabolize carbohydrates (they thought), there was also an animal diet where the patient only ate meat and fats. But in the post WWI world, who had that kind of money. Otherwise…
THEY DIED.
I want to be clear about what happened to babies who were born before 35 weeks. This was before the isolette which was developed in the 1880s to keep premature babies warm by Stephane Tarnier, a French physician.
THEY DIED.
I want to be clear about what happened to patients who developed gangrene from wounds before penicillin was discovered in 1928.
THEY DIED.
I want to be clear about what happened to women and children who were widowed and orphaned, respectively, and were sent to poorhouses because there was no longer anyone working.
SOME DIED.
I want to be clear about what was a major cause of death of women before the mid 20th century. Childbirth, many, many women DIED in childbirth.
I want to be clear about what happened to babies with congenital heart malformations such as Tetralogy of Fallot or a patent ductus arteriosus (which is the failure of the pathway between the two major arteries of the heart) or a transposition of the great arteries (the switching of the pulmonary artery and the aorta).
THEY DIED.
In agony.
I want to be clear about what happened to the babies who were born different and twisted.
They got sent away to an institution and THEY DIED EARLY.
All of the advancements brought to you by medical pioneers and researchers and you want to throw it away?
Worse, the government wants to throw it away. And toss money after it because of the cancelled trials.
Shame.
Dispatches from the Evening Shift 