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Heart Surgeon Takes Notes from da Vinci
vivekg writes "Leonardo da Vinci probably never thought he had the proverbial Holy Grail to a revolution in heart surgery. Almost 500 years after da Vinci's death, intricate diagrams of the human heart made by him have inspired a British surgeon to pioneer a new way to repair damaged hearts."
Disclaimer: this post is philosophical drivel...
I wonder how many insights from the past we as a "civilization" may be whistling past. In our smug (seemingly) mastery of technology I often feel a sense of something missing, or just not quite in the right place. Today we can instantaneously retrieve and play on our mp3 players any song that tickles our fancy, but to what end? When sales of Britney outstrip sales of the Emperor Concerto something is out of whack.
Base and rank commercialism has overtaken sensibility. Our choices are far less choices and far more subtle (and sometimes otherwise) manipulation of our choices by mass market driven money making machines.
For example, the food industry: did you know that one of the most healthy foods you can eat is tuna? And if you're trying to lose weight it can be a keystone in that goal. Did you know that some brands of tuna have artificially introduced certain appetite inducing chemicals? No intrinsic added value to the food, just a manipulation of you to buy more food (hopefully, their tuna).
Now, to relate all of this back to the original article. What percentage of medical breakthroughs and research have anything to do with cumulative knowledge? What percentage is just purely money driven?
It's only my opinion, but "we" as a civilization will show true evolution when we take use of true knowledge and think less about everything as "business". Business is an artifact. Truth and knowledge serve more faithfully.
Does anyone else here get the feeling from this that doctors have a sort of "well, that's how it's always been done" approach to medicine? I mean, you'd think that at some point, somebody would have stopped and said "is there a better way to do this?" I guess, in some ways, this guy is that "revolutionary" thinker...
Be a real patriot: Question authority. Think for yourself. Formulate your own conclusions.
It's funny how much you can get done once you blow bureaucracy out of the way. Exhuming corpses for study probably broke a billion laws back then as well, but so much has come from his approach. Then again, I might be confusing the Da Vinci Code with reality. Damned fiction based on facts. It's probably safest to just say that I HEARD that he exhumed corpses. I didn't know him personally.
It's not that he exhumed corpses, it's that he studied them. (Which is partly how he became so good at realistic stone carving.) Ya see, if you studied the corpse, you could eventually figure out how they died. And well, so many members of royalty and people involved with powerful people died under "mysterious circumstances" that the survivors (who in many cases were the next in line for the position) didn't want to be implicated/accused/beheaded, so that anything that could lead to autopsies were pretty much outlawed.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
"there was no monopoly; barbers and other people ..."
Yeah and numerous people were killed in their dubious attempts at medicine. BTW medicine is not a monopoly ... anybody can join if you (i) finish medschool (ii) pass an exam. If you are not smart enough to do these ... there is no need to involve antitrust law in this.
... of malpractice suits. If you do something differently, and something goes wrong, the lawyers come out and sue because you were doing something non standard. I find it a bit spooky that a doctor would even need to look at old drawings to know how heart valves work. Isn't this why they are made to work on cadavers, so they know the body inside and out? Doesn't the real thing trump some old drawings?