Recently I’ve been reading S.I. McMillen’s book None of these Diseases. It’s a classic in terms of examining the wisdom behind Biblical health laws. And despite my parents’ giving it to me 12 years ago and its sitting on my bookshelf for this entire time, I’d never read it.
It’s been really quite fascinating. It makes sense that I would be interested in this type of thing anyway, but it’s really just a great book. Even though it was originally written in 1963, it still has a lot of really good information.
There’s a lot that I could talk about, but one section of the book really struck me today. The author is talking about the plague of smoking and all the associated diseases that come along with it. He then makes this statement:
A surprising change in attitude has occured during the past eight years. The American Medical Association journals now will accept no advertising from cigarette companies, and no tobacco companies are allowed to take booths in AMA conventions.
WHAT! Can you imagine the medical outcry if Camel tried to take up space at an AMA conference or advertise in JAMA?! It’s unbelievable that this ever happened.
It’s always striking to me to see how things used to be, back before we knew about the effects of smoking, or back before we knew about DNA, or radiation… Poor Rosalind Franklin.
It makes me wonder what else we’ll discover in the next 50 years, and then look back on our actions today and think that we were total idiots. “What?! We didn’t know that plastic causes cancer? How could we not know that??”
Poor Marie Curie.