Surely this has to be kept in a historical context of what was the perceived wisdom of the time.maaarcooose wrote:I remember seeing a program about colorants and in the early 1900's they would colour kids sweets with red lead.
!m!
Egyptian women (and men) used lead-based paints as make-up and lipstick. Queen Elizabeth the First of England used white-lead paste as a pancake on her face to hide her wrinkles - which started a major fashion trend for that era. Nobody new about the effects of applying lead to the skin.
In Victorian England - lead piping was used to pipe fresh(ish) water because it was easy to bend and fit... They didn't know that lead would leech into the water itself - nor what the long-term effects of lead poisoning could possibly be... but it (fresh water) was a much better alternative to the diseases such as the Black Death, cholera, dysentery and Typhoid that were prevalent in London UK at the time.
Lead pipes from fresh water and a building of a proper sewer-system saved hundreds of thousands of deaths from cholera in London once John Snow had recognised (and he was the first) that diseases can be carried through water!
In my childhood there were still model soldiers made of lead, toys painted with lead paint and even today there are a lot of old houses that still have water-supply pipes made out of lead.
As I seem to remember it DDT was the lesser of two weevils.... the Tsetse fly and the mosquitoes were killing millions of people in Africa... DDT was seen, in the 50's and 60's, as some magical bullet (just like antibiotics were) to cure all ills. DDT fell out of favour - just as antibiotics are currently being seen as NOT the great cure-all they once were heralded as in the 50's... incidences of antibiotic-resistant gonorrhoea (the sheep-shaggers favourite and the oldest disease known to Welsmen) are increasing at an alarming rate (http://www.cdc.gov/std/Gonorrhea/arg/default.htm) and of course we all know that that is not the only one that the “magic” bullet is increasingly failing to hit.
Consider for a moment how historically (and hysterically) hypocritical we - in the 21st Century - are of those people who lived in Victorian London?
One point to consider... We all seem to remember that most of the poorer classes in Victorian London drank heavily of Gin and Ale... So we seem to (with 2013 20-20 PC hindsight) as a bunch of inebriates who couldn’t stay away from the booze... WRONG!
In actual fact they were doing a very sensible thing - staying away from drinking the water!
If you drank the water - you got the shits at the very least. The production of alcohol necessitated the boiling of water - something that killed off the bacteria in it - before “bacteria” were even known to science at the time... In fact nobody even knew - back then - how diseases were communicated... and it didn’t really matter because everyone was either perpetually pissed or dead!
So we now - somewhat smugly look back at the Egyptians, the Victorians, the 50's scientists and chortle... “Oh gosh... how could they have not seen that coming?” with lead, DDT, radiation, antibiotics et al...
BUT... be careful... in another 50 years will they not be saying similar thing about YOU and ME?
”Good lord - suntan beds? They were actually allowed? Didn’t they know it caused cancer?”
“My god - they chlorinated the water - it killed millions?”
“Computer games made two generations too obese to go outside and get some exercise - unable to fight a real war - that’s why we are now the United States of China!”
“My gosh - people really used to drink from chlorinated water that was supplied through copper pipes? Didn’t they realise what the long term health risks that were associated with copper?”
Ahhhhh.... Pick and mix your own variations of horror stories that our descendants may be discussing in the next century... I don’t care because I won’t be there....
It just makes me chuckle when I hear people talking about the “horrors” of “recent” science when in actual fact “science” (or a “crap logical explanation for magic”) has been going on around us for thousands of years...
I love that song by the “Bare Naked Ladies” - The Big Bang Theory...
It sums us all up in two minutes.
Our whole universe was in a hot dense state,
Then nearly fourteen billion years ago expansion started. Wait...
The Earth began to cool,
The autotrophs began to drool,
Neanderthals developed tools,
We built a wall (we built the pyramids),
Math, science, history, unraveling the mysteries,
That all started with the big bang!
"Since the dawn of man" is really not that long,
As every galaxy was formed in less time than it takes to sing this song.
A fraction of a second and the elements were made.
The bipeds stood up straight,
The dinosaurs all met their fate,
They tried to leap but they were late
And they all died (they froze their asses off)
The oceans and Pangea
See ya wouldn't wanna be ya
Set in motion by the same big bang!
It all started with the big BANG!
It's expanding ever outward but one day
It will pause and start to go the other way,
Collapsing ever inward, we won't be here, it won't be heard
Our best and brightest figure that it'll make an even bigger bang!
Australopithecus would really have been sick of us
Debating how we're here, they're catching deer (we're catching viruses)
Religion or astronomy (Descartes or Deuteronomy)
It all started with the big bang!
Music and mythology, Einstein and astrology
It all started with the big bang!
It all started with the big BANG!
OMG - Just realised I am in a nihilistic mood.... I need to stop this negativity.
OK.... Now I just switched into “Camp Granada” mood... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzErh_s62Wk (final verse)
Wait a minute, it stopped hailing,
Guys are swimming, gals are sailing.
Playing baseball, gee that's betta,
Mudda, Fadda, kindly disregard this letter!
My final take on this is “Who are we to judge?”
In 1968 I thought it was “cool in the kaftan”... so I wore one... (BEATLES) a year later I thought that Levis were the main thing (BEATLES WHITE ALBUM.) In 1972 I grew bushy sideboards and wore 6“ stacked leather boots (SLADE.) In 1974 I grew a beard and long hair (GEORGE HARRISON.) In 1976 I walked around in a white suit wearing 4“ stacked leather boots with my hair “permed” (BEE GEES - and Tom Baker.)
Yusssssss......
So to bring this back to some sort of relevance....
The decisions “THEY” made back “then” are not really that risible - especially when you understand that WE may be making the same sort of decisions that “THEY” did - RIGHT NOW!
Bahhh.... To be honest - this is one of those replies I wish I had never started to reply to....
I apologise in advance!
