Pharmakos were those unfortunates in Ancient Greece who happened to be poor and crippled and without any local, prosperous, relatives to succour them, who were thus forced into slavery, begging or petty criminality.
When a crisis arose and the normally smoothly streamlined social sphere developed strains and cracks, the Pharmakos were scapegoated restored it.
Social 'bumps' (the Pharmakos) were beaten out - metaphorically as well as in actuality - to return streamlining and normalcy.
My forthcoming biography "The OTHER Manhattan Project" celebrates the 75 years since Dr Dawson birthed Antibiotics in Manhattan on October 16th 1940. This project was more from Venus than Mars, more Emma Lazarus than Gordon Gekko. Defying governments, defying Allied/Axis eugenics, even defying the team's physical disabilities. But in the end, Manhattan beaconed the right of EVERYONE to receive life-saving penicillin out to a world tired, huddled and wretched.
Showing posts with label chickenhawks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label chickenhawks. Show all posts
Monday, July 7, 2014
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
when chickenhawks fantasize about war ...
War medicine was from Mars, Social medicine from Venus ?
The very word "war" medicine seems to stir something vaguely Mars-like, deep within the soul of the chickenhawk doctor or scientist.
Successfully conceiving ,in an academic lab at the University of Chicago, a way to reduce combat deaths from shock seems to transport one almost up to the frontline evacuation hospitals, directly under hostile fire.
Being there, doing it, roughing it , all sweaty and virile-like : medical science with the smell of the locker room and the men's shower stall about it.
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