Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2007/01/15

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Subject: [Leica] IMG hardware software
From: pklein at 2alpha.net (Peter Klein)
Date: Mon Jan 15 22:12:51 2007

Adam, I'm not sure it's a "Luddite" attitude.  It goes deeper.  Medical 
technology has always evoked both wonder and revulsion in people.  Mary 
Shelley's "Frankenstein" struck a chord, and continues to affect us over 
two centuries because of that ambivalent feeling.  Sticking things into the 
body, and putting things in or drawing things out has always seemed icky to 
most humans.  I'm sure there's an evolutionary reason for this.

We want to hug a sick child.  That's instinct.  Tubes and meters EKGs and 
IV bags seem cold, impersonal, almost inhuman.  Of course, our hugs will do 
little good for many sick children--it's those cold, clinical 
machines--hopefully run by knowledgeable and compassionate doctors like our 
Steve who will save them.  Still, the attitude persists.  Knowledge can 
override instinct, but it can't eliminate it entirely.

I look at these pictures of Steve's and I see both of those realities.  The 
pitifully small child dwarfed by these Frankensteinian machines, and the 
miracle that those machines might just give the child back his or her health.

--Peter

Re. Steve Barbour's photo,
http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/barbour/PAW2007/icu+care+2.jpg.html

At 10:59 PM 1/14/2007 -0800, Adam Bridge wrote:
>I'm glad you captured it, Steve.
>
>I'm bothered by the almost Luddite tendency of Western society.
>There's a lack of understanding of science - perpetuated by the media
>who confuse science and engineering so badly that you'd never know
>they were different disciplines.

[snip]

>Medicine seems a prime target for this neo-Luddite point of view. The
>idea that technology might help physicians and nurses be better
>care-givers somehow gets chomped by the role of the bean-counters.
>
>On 1/14/07, Steve Barbour <kididdoc@cox.net> wrote:
>
> > when I saw this image I was doing my rounds, and had no camera with
> > me at the hospital...
> > but the scene expressed to me exactly what you said above...
> >
> > so hours later I returned to the hospital, just to get the shot...
> > if the image has conveyed this feeling,
> > I guess it was worth it...
> >
> > thank you, Steve


Replies: Reply from kididdoc at cox.net (Steve Barbour) ([Leica] IMG hardware software)
Reply from kididdoc at cox.net (Steve Barbour) ([Leica] IMG hardware software)