THIS IS NOT WHAT I MEAN: The End of Health
I believe it was the French thinker Voltaire who said ink vanquished the clergy during the renaissance. The explosive rise in publishing, with the invention and spread of the Guttenberg Press (1450), contributed to the democratization of knowledge. For close to 2,000 years, priests held a monopoly on knowledge with the ability to read and write a closely guarded secret.
Power was invested in writing and knowledge and the gods. Those that could read were closest to the gods and were deemed the most powerful. The ability to write was considered a divine gift from gods and a means to identify and link with them. Note the power of the bible idea of the 10 commandments of Yahweh. Rulers and priests were the most powerful people and they guarded books and the writing skills and by extension this implied power.
Monasteries trained monks to transcribe books and monks were tightly guarded, held as intellectual prisoners in fortresses. All this changed when Johann Guttenberg invented movable type and the bible suddenly became available to anyone who could buy one. This process, democratic and sudden, loosened the strange hold of the Catholic church on knowledge and learning. Anyone could interpret, learn, and spread the word of God. This off course was never the intention of the devout Catholic Guttenberg, but his invention inadvertently opened the door for Martin Luther, to print and pin his 95 theses it is claimed on the door of All Saints’ church (even though this story might be apocryphal) arguing against the selling of indulgences, which were tickets to heaven, by the Church. The irony is the rabidly antisemitic Luther ushered in literary freedom forever guaranteed and led to advances in art, philosophy, and later science.
The question you might ask what does all this rambling have to do with health care? There are significant similarities in how medical knowledge was held in the past and the current democratization of medical information brought about by information technology. It is no coincidence many people dub the internet search engine- “ Dr Google !”. People can search for their medical symptoms and get a diagnosis online and then merely consult a doctor to get a prescription. Or so it seems that is what should, could, or might happen in a perfect world. So, the question I ask is this....are we now seeing the end of medical care as we have come to know it? Will artificial intelligence, machine learning, and opportunities wrought by Covid-19 bring the medical establishment to its knees?
I hope to explore these changes and reflect on advances and challenges in medicine, with articles over the next 52 weeks, posting one or two articles per week. I have written a book Health Praxis: Public Health in Complex Times that seems appropriate now that the Covid-19 pandemic has changed the world. This book will come out in about 6 months.
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