Medical Science: From Hippocrates to Prozac

Some sciences are exact. It can be proven and repeated over and over that certain materials are combustible when they reach a certain temperature Fahrenheit. The temperature paper must reach before it will burn is 451 degrees. The temperature gasoline must reach before it will burn is 495 degrees. I do not know what the temperature has to be before a person’s hand will burn. However, I do know if you leave your car windows up on an August afternoon the steering wheel gets to that Fahrenheit level in the time it takes to run into the store and buy milk.
Unfortunately medicine is not one of those exact sciences. Over the last few months entirely too many members of my family have visited doctors for entirely too many reasons. I am not denigrating the doctors we have seen. I just wish these medical professionals had a magic book which allowed them to listen to the symptoms, diagnose the problem, and dispense a cure. While I’m wishing, why not have the cure be something simple like burying a potato in the backyard during a full moon to get rid of a sinus infection instead of paying $47 for a prescription which cures you nearly as fast as burying a potato in the backyard during a full moon would.
As I was wandering around the waiting room of one doctor’s office I picked up a pamphlet describing the symptoms of depression. I don’t think I’m depressed. What is there to be depressed about? The world is a safe and caring place full of sympathetic people who all wish to help one another lead a meaningful and productive life. Well, maybe that’s an overstatement. But, the country we live in is a shining beacon of truth and justice with a government devoid of greed and corruption led by men and women of unquestionable integrity. Oh, my. My house no longer has a basement which leaks whenever there is a rain shower of more than seven one hundredths of inch. Bingo! That one is true. Oh, I give up. Pass the Prozac.
That same pamphlet said depression is caused by an imbalance of chemicals in the brain. Here we are in the early 21st century and they trot this out. Hippocrates, one of those Greek guys from like 400 BC, said human behaviors were caused by bodily fluids called humors. These fluids were blood, yellow bile, black bile and phlegm. Other then being somewhat gross (anything which talks about phlegm falls into the somewhat gross category) this was wrong. It was disproved by doctor type scientists, which was good because the idea led to doctor type barbers opening veins left and right to “balance the humors.” So here is this pamphlet in a reputable doctor’s office saying the chemicals might be out of balance in my head. Maybe Theodoric of York from the old Saturday Night Live sketch was right when he said: “You know, medicine is not an exact science, but we are learning all the time. Why, just fifty years ago, they thought a disease like your daughter's was caused by demonic possession or witchcraft. But nowadays we know that Isabelle is suffering from an imbalance of bodily humors, perhaps caused by a toad or a small dwarf living in her stomach.” I need an MRI to check for toads and dwarves.
Recently my wife and I took our oldest daughter to see a couple of different doctors in one day. This by itself is not a bother. The issue is the amount of paperwork and bureaucratic-like red tape one must wade through. I realize with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (aka HIPAA) the government intended to protect the public from people prying into our personal medical business. However, I suspect the medical establishment is taking it too seriously. Every receptionist, nurse, and doctor asked us the same questions. I know they are supposed to treat the information as a secret but I really don’t mind if they tell each other. That just makes sense.
As I get older the doctors get younger. This makes it harder to take them seriously. A doctor should be balding with gray hair around his temples and a sympathetic face made more caring by the wrinkles around his eyes and mouth. Two of the doctors we dealt with this day looked more like refugees from the Disney Channel. When they came into the examination room I expected them to give us the test results using pom-poms and high kicks.
“Ready? Hit it. Your EKG was A-OK and we think you’re just swell.
We promise that in 30 days you’ll get the bill from H-E-A-R-T.
Goooo, heart!”

Christopher Pyle’s daughter is just fine, but he does still have the concern there is a toad in his stomach eating his Prozac. This knocks his humors out of whack. He may be a quart or two low on phlegm.