A LIFE free from all of today’s agonizing problems? How can this be? When we look out at the world, we see problems growing.
For instance, in nearly every country on earth there are very serious and persistent economic problems. Millions have trouble finding suitable work. Debts are at an all-time high. Fathers worry about supporting their families. Mothers see prices going up all the time and are frustrated when trying to make ends meet. Half of the old folks in many so-called prosperous nations live in poverty. Hunger and illiteracy increase in poorer lands.
Yet, the world’s wisest economists cannot invent an economic system that assures lasting prosperity for all. They can only try to patch up this tottering system for a while, but then it breaks down again.
Family Life Breaking Down
Family life, too, is breaking down all over the world, not improving. Country after country sees a new peak in divorces.
In a marital situation that has become quite common, one woman wrote: “I’m very unhappy. My husband gets upset over practically nothing. We have one married son, but he comes home only for short visits and hardly tolerates me. We have few friends. Now, with the years passing, I find myself more and more isolated. I feel all alone in the world. What can I do to make life worth living?” Ever so many people feel just that way.
Parents today have added worries. Their children face problems no other generation of young people ever had. These young people see the ‘jungle’ that the world has become, and many are disgusted with it and afraid. As one student leader said in his graduation speech: “Today as we leave school a sense of frustration and despair overwhelms us.”
Where can parents turn for dependable help? Listen to this editorial in the New York Times. It said: ‘For a century or more parents have been bombarded with advice about family life. Doctors, nurses, teachers and theologians have given their advice, and in recent decades they have been joined by psychologists and psychoanalysts. But were we to collect all this good advice and inspect it, what would we find? Little more, I’m afraid, than a jumbled, noisy mass of contradiction. Pity, therefore, the poor parent. The more conscientious he or she is in seeking advice, the more confused he is likely to become.’
Problems with Science
At one time it was thought that science would help to lead the way to that better world and solve many of mankind’s distressing problems. But now scientists themselves admit that science often causes as many problems as it solves, if not more.
An example of the disappointment in science can be noted when we read the July 1899 issue of Scientific American. Away back then, this scientific publication predicted that the automobile ‘would have a fine influence on city life.’ It spoke of ‘light rubber-tired vehicles moving swiftly and noiselessly over clean, dustless and odorless streets, eliminating much of the nervousness, distraction and strain of modern city life.’
In the light of actual experience, that prediction is laughable today, is it not? Just the exact opposite has come to pass. In addition, around the world tens of thousands of people are killed and millions are injured every year by automobiles.
Even the inventors of machines have expressed dismay at the dashing of their dreams for a better world. In 1942, during World War II, Orville Wright, who with his brother Wilbur developed the airplane, wrote this to Henry Ford, Senior, developer of the mass-produced automobile: ‘Wilbur and I thought the airplane would hasten world peace. It seems to have done the opposite. I suspect that when you introduced mass-production—one of the great inventions of the ages—you little thought it would be used in building tanks for world destruction. It seems that no beneficial thing can be introduced without someone finding a vicious use for it.’
This same frustration is being felt in the medical field. At one time there were high hopes that modern medicine would conquer sickness and help to lead to a better world. But sickness has not been conquered. In fact, some of the worst ailments such as cancer and heart disease are making the biggest increases. Even some of the efforts at cures are backfiring. In the United States, about 30,000 people a year are said to die as the direct result of drugs prescribed by their doctors, with ten times as many suffering bad reactions.
No Peace
What about a world of total peace, with no locks, jails, police forces, armies or weapons of destruction? Why, the world is farther away from that than ever. Crime skyrockets; the nations now spend about 300 billion dollars a year on weapons; there is one war after another. Human leaders certainly are not bringing permanent world peace.
In the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, most leaders were predicting a grand new era of peace and prosperity. An encyclopedia comments: “Before 1914, even the theologians believed, as did all the cultivated and educated people, that the world was on its way toward a better future. To the best ones of the old generation, 1914 meant a shock they never got over.” In 1914 the world was engulfed in the most horrible war to that time, contrary to all the ‘rosy’ predictions. And World War II was even worse, taking an estimated 55 million lives!
Also, in recent years especially, people have seen corruption both in government and in business. As a result, polls show that confidence in human institutions is at an all-time low.
What is frustrating is that so many of these problems that affect people are beyond their control. Because of this, emotional instability grows. Why, in the United States alone last year about 57 million prescriptions—involving billions of pills—were filled for just one type of drug—a tranquilizer.
So, after all this time, we can be sure of one thing: humans, on their own, can never bring about the kind of life we want, the kind of life we described at the outset. It is little wonder, therefore, that we read this in the Bible, at Psalm 146, verse 3: “Do not put your trust in nobles, nor in the son of earthling man, to whom no salvation belongs.”
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Meet the Bat—The Only Flying Mammal
‘BATS are ugly creatures that live in dark, eerie caves. Their favorite haunts are cemeteries, where they fly among the tombstones on foggy nights. They carry bedbugs. What’s more, they’re blind, filthy and a menace to man.’
In a nutshell, that’s what many people think of us. But as an old bat, let me say something in our defense. Incidentally, calling me “old” can mean that I am getting on to being thirteen years of age, though I know of bats that have lived to be more than twenty.
Oh, yes.! That’s me—that big brown bat over there on the next page. I’m resting on a glass with a bright light underneath so that you can see everything. Take a good look while I tell you about myself and my relatives.
Getting Better Acquainted
We are mammals of the order Chiroptera. There are several hundred species of us throughout the temperate and tropical regions of the earth; so you won’t be able to meet all the relatives.
Basically, we are small, winged, furry creatures whose body resembles that of a mouse. In fact, the Germans call the bat Fledermaus, meaning “flying mouse.”
Among mammals, we alone can fly. “Oh, is that right?” you ask. “What about flying squirrels?” Well, all they can do is glide. We’re different. As Volume I of Mammals of the World puts it: “Bats are the only mammals that fly, although several gliding mammals are referred to as ‘flying.’”
Depending on the species, my relative’s head and face may resemble a bear, a dog, or maybe a fox. One is called the horse-headed bat, for obvious reasons. In some cases, the nose has a growth on it—perhaps one looking like a leaf. Sensory nerve endings are found in those growths.
Bats vary greatly, and I can just imagine someone asking, ‘Who’s the fairest of them all?’ Well, we’re not all ugly, that’s certain. But the wrinkle-faced bat will never win a beauty contest. About the best word for its facial features is grotesque.
What about color? Many of us are brown, gray or black. But there are variations. For instance, the ghost bat is white, maybe with some gray mixed in. There is a fruit-eating bat with a blackish head and dark-brown wings with yellow spots. Of course, these are just examples.
We’ve been known to fool people. At least I don’t think they always know what we are. Consider one small bat of tropical America and Trinidad. It was found roosting at night on the underside of a bridge, in company with cockroaches 51 millimeters (2 inches) long. Of these bats, Walter W. Dalquest wrote: “The resemblance to a cockroach was amazing. The apparent ‘legs’ were the tips of the wings, turned out and back from the body at a 30° angle. . . . It was completely impossible, at a range of 20 feet [6 meters], to tell cockroaches from bats, except that I did not see red-gleaming eyes of the cockroaches.”
Now, if you’ll take another look at my picture, I’ll tell you something about . . .
How We Fly
Actually, our wings consist of thin skin. It stretches from our front limbs along each side of our bodies to our hind legs. The skin or membrane runs between our five digits, that is, the four fingers and thumb.
We usually roost by hanging upside-down by our feet. Generally, we ‘take off’ merely by dropping from a roosting place. We just spread our wings and we’re airborne. But we have no trouble ‘taking off’ from a level place. All we do is jump into the air, using both our legs and arms in the launching operation.
When it comes to wingspan, there certainly are big differences among us. For instance, the little brown bat, with a body under four inches (10 centimeters) long, can spread its wings to fourteen inches (35.5 centimeters). However, the prizewinner among us is the “flying fox,” so named for its looks. These dark-brown bats that inhabit most of the tropics, other than South America, have a wingspread that may exceed five feet (1.5 meters)!
To turn in flight, or to stop, the little brown bat moves its tail downward, making it act like a brake. The lump-nosed bat flies slowly, but it can also hover over something of interest.
Where We Live
Now, a word about living in dark, eerie caves. I must admit that millions of us roost in deep, pitch-black caverns. But did you know that some of us roost in trees, various buildings, ancient temples—yes, and in tombs, too? Why, a number reside in certain Egyptian pyramids! Others take over vacant bird nests and animal burrows. We also live in bell towers and church steeples. Eden Phillpotts once wrote: “His father’s sister had bats in the belfry and was put away.” (Peacock House) You know, of course, that is a writer’s humorous way of saying she was crazy. Well, we’re responsible for that saying because bats sometimes do roost up there with the bells in those towers.
What We Eat
Now let me tell you how we bats can be grouped, not by scientific names, but by our eating habits and physiology. Insect eaters are the most numerous. Generally, they catch their prey in flight. Fruit eaters are tropical bats mostly dependent upon wild fruit, though they are known to cause great damage to orchards.
Some of our number are small flower feeders with long tongues. Pollen and nectar are their fare. Lizards, frogs, small mammals and birds are on the menu of moderate-sized carnivorous bats, although they also eat other things. Then there are the fish eaters. Their powerful feet have hooked claws capable of snatching prey near the surface of the water.
But I’ve left out someone who has given us a bad name, that is,
The Villainous Vampire
For quite some time now fictitious tales have been circulating about dead people who supposedly rise from their sepulchers at night, transform themselves into bats, and suck the blood of hapless humans. You know the old vampire story. Well, mainly in the tropical and subtropical regions of America there are members of my “family” known as vampire bats. They do feed on blood, sometimes that of sleeping humans.
The vampire bat has razor-sharp teeth. In fact, they’re so sharp that the bite is just about painless and the sleeping animal or human rarely is awakened by it. Maybe for some twenty minutes or so this bat gorges itself, taking in so much blood that its little body becomes spherical before the meal is over.
Actually, the amount of blood lapped up (not sucked) is not so great as to endanger humans. But there is another peril. Vampire bats may have rabies. So, left unchecked, their bites can result in hydrophobia and death. Vampire bats also transmit other diseases, such as murrina, which affects livestock. These little bats are dangerous, too, because their bites can cause secondary infection.
Always Harmful?
Does this mean that we’re all harmful villains? No. Some of us serve a useful purpose in helping to control the insect population. Others unwittingly carry pollen from flower to flower. Then, too, bat manure, or guano—plentiful on the floors of bat caves—can be used as fertilizer. Did you know that for two decades guano for fertilizer was acquired in commercial amounts from the noted Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico? That’s right.
Why, people have considered us so useful that you might say we’ve been “drafted.” During the American Civil War, from guano the Confederate Army got niter (sodium nitrate) for gunpowder. For that matter, while World War II was raging, there was some effort made to use certain bats to carry little incendiary bombs. I’m certainly happy that idea was abandoned!
Oh! Another thing. In some places, like northern India, those bats called “flying foxes” are eaten. People say their meat resembles that of chicken. But I surely hope this idea of humans eating us doesn’t spread. We have enough trouble trying to get away from snakes, birds of prey and other creatures (even some bats) that think we taste good. Incidentally, people under the Mosaic law were not supposed to eat us.—Lev. 11:13-19.
Now, what about the idea that bats are filthy? Well, just listen to what was said by Ernest P. Walker, onetime assistant director of the United States National Zoological Park, Washington, D.C. He remarked: “Bats are by no means unclean. They’re clean as cats—they groom themselves every morning and after each meal.” In grooming, we use our tongue and toes. We just reach up with one of our hind limbs and scratch the back, face and top of the head.
Some people go around saying we carry bedbugs. Occasionally, parasites, yes. But not bedbugs, if that’s any comfort to you!
We’re Really Unique!
Let me tell you a few things that are sort of special about us. Some of us hibernate. Listen to what James Poling said: “The bat is warm-blooded while active but cold-blooded while slumbering. It is able to go into hibernation more quickly and easily than other mammals—which is why it can so readily be put in the refrigerator. [Some of us are kept there in research laboratories.] It just drops its body temperature and falls asleep; the heart slows from 180 beats a minute to three, respiration drops from eight breaths a second to eight per minute. While the bat has some accumulated fat—as it ordinarily has in early fall before winter hibernation—it can live for months in cold storage, unfed and unattended, the ‘motor idling,’ while waiting its turn to come under laboratory scrutiny.”—Marvels & Mysteries of Our Animal World.
Those of us who do not hibernate in caves or elsewhere during the wintertime migrate to places where we can find food. Besides, some of us think that it’s a good idea to spend the winter months in a warmer climate.
Say, did you know that some of our pregnant females get together in maternity colonies? Noctule bats are a good example of this. Sometimes as many as four hundred of their pregnant females get together and set up “maternity wards” in buildings or trees. Furthermore, some female bats evidently store male sperm. In many cases, we mate in the fall and hibernate during the winter, but our females don’t ovulate until the next spring, permitting fertilization to take place at that time. Isn’t that something?
Our Echolocating System
There are people who use the expression “as blind as a bat.” But we’re not blind and some of us see very well. Anyhow, we have a very special way of getting around, one that baffles men of science. It’s called “echolocation,” and this is how it works:
As we fly about, we emit squeaks, chirps, clicks, buzzes and the like through our mouths or noses. Since these sounds range from 25,000 to 70,000 vibrations a second, you humans—with an auditory range up to only about 30,000 vibrations—can’t hear most of the sounds. But, you know, we don’t hear our own sounds either, because when they are sent out our ear muscles contract, momentarily ‘turning off the sound.’ What we do hear is the echo that bounces off any object that happens to be in our path. In that way, even in total darkness, we can maneuver so as to avoid obstacles.
With all this squeaking, buzzing, and so forth, how do we avoid collisions with one another when many of us flock together? “It is possible,” wrote Thomas R. Henry, “that each animal has its individual sound pattern and is guided only by its own echoes. Otherwise, it would seem, there would be complete confusion from the echoes of several hundred bats moving in a flock.”
Why not take matters a little farther? How do insect-eating bats tell the difference between echoes bouncing off obstacles and those glancing off potential meals? As yet, you folks don’t know, and I’m not saying.
Now, what’s the purpose of all this talking? Well, I just wanted to correct some misconceptions about myself and my fellow fliers. Another thing: I really wanted to impress you with our unique abilities. Of course, we came by them naturally. So, the credit really has to go to the Creator of the only flying mammal.
In a nutshell, that’s what many people think of us. But as an old bat, let me say something in our defense. Incidentally, calling me “old” can mean that I am getting on to being thirteen years of age, though I know of bats that have lived to be more than twenty.
Oh, yes.! That’s me—that big brown bat over there on the next page. I’m resting on a glass with a bright light underneath so that you can see everything. Take a good look while I tell you about myself and my relatives.
Getting Better Acquainted
We are mammals of the order Chiroptera. There are several hundred species of us throughout the temperate and tropical regions of the earth; so you won’t be able to meet all the relatives.
Basically, we are small, winged, furry creatures whose body resembles that of a mouse. In fact, the Germans call the bat Fledermaus, meaning “flying mouse.”
Among mammals, we alone can fly. “Oh, is that right?” you ask. “What about flying squirrels?” Well, all they can do is glide. We’re different. As Volume I of Mammals of the World puts it: “Bats are the only mammals that fly, although several gliding mammals are referred to as ‘flying.’”
Depending on the species, my relative’s head and face may resemble a bear, a dog, or maybe a fox. One is called the horse-headed bat, for obvious reasons. In some cases, the nose has a growth on it—perhaps one looking like a leaf. Sensory nerve endings are found in those growths.
Bats vary greatly, and I can just imagine someone asking, ‘Who’s the fairest of them all?’ Well, we’re not all ugly, that’s certain. But the wrinkle-faced bat will never win a beauty contest. About the best word for its facial features is grotesque.
What about color? Many of us are brown, gray or black. But there are variations. For instance, the ghost bat is white, maybe with some gray mixed in. There is a fruit-eating bat with a blackish head and dark-brown wings with yellow spots. Of course, these are just examples.
We’ve been known to fool people. At least I don’t think they always know what we are. Consider one small bat of tropical America and Trinidad. It was found roosting at night on the underside of a bridge, in company with cockroaches 51 millimeters (2 inches) long. Of these bats, Walter W. Dalquest wrote: “The resemblance to a cockroach was amazing. The apparent ‘legs’ were the tips of the wings, turned out and back from the body at a 30° angle. . . . It was completely impossible, at a range of 20 feet [6 meters], to tell cockroaches from bats, except that I did not see red-gleaming eyes of the cockroaches.”
Now, if you’ll take another look at my picture, I’ll tell you something about . . .
How We Fly
Actually, our wings consist of thin skin. It stretches from our front limbs along each side of our bodies to our hind legs. The skin or membrane runs between our five digits, that is, the four fingers and thumb.
We usually roost by hanging upside-down by our feet. Generally, we ‘take off’ merely by dropping from a roosting place. We just spread our wings and we’re airborne. But we have no trouble ‘taking off’ from a level place. All we do is jump into the air, using both our legs and arms in the launching operation.
When it comes to wingspan, there certainly are big differences among us. For instance, the little brown bat, with a body under four inches (10 centimeters) long, can spread its wings to fourteen inches (35.5 centimeters). However, the prizewinner among us is the “flying fox,” so named for its looks. These dark-brown bats that inhabit most of the tropics, other than South America, have a wingspread that may exceed five feet (1.5 meters)!
To turn in flight, or to stop, the little brown bat moves its tail downward, making it act like a brake. The lump-nosed bat flies slowly, but it can also hover over something of interest.
Where We Live
Now, a word about living in dark, eerie caves. I must admit that millions of us roost in deep, pitch-black caverns. But did you know that some of us roost in trees, various buildings, ancient temples—yes, and in tombs, too? Why, a number reside in certain Egyptian pyramids! Others take over vacant bird nests and animal burrows. We also live in bell towers and church steeples. Eden Phillpotts once wrote: “His father’s sister had bats in the belfry and was put away.” (Peacock House) You know, of course, that is a writer’s humorous way of saying she was crazy. Well, we’re responsible for that saying because bats sometimes do roost up there with the bells in those towers.
What We Eat
Now let me tell you how we bats can be grouped, not by scientific names, but by our eating habits and physiology. Insect eaters are the most numerous. Generally, they catch their prey in flight. Fruit eaters are tropical bats mostly dependent upon wild fruit, though they are known to cause great damage to orchards.
Some of our number are small flower feeders with long tongues. Pollen and nectar are their fare. Lizards, frogs, small mammals and birds are on the menu of moderate-sized carnivorous bats, although they also eat other things. Then there are the fish eaters. Their powerful feet have hooked claws capable of snatching prey near the surface of the water.
But I’ve left out someone who has given us a bad name, that is,
The Villainous Vampire
For quite some time now fictitious tales have been circulating about dead people who supposedly rise from their sepulchers at night, transform themselves into bats, and suck the blood of hapless humans. You know the old vampire story. Well, mainly in the tropical and subtropical regions of America there are members of my “family” known as vampire bats. They do feed on blood, sometimes that of sleeping humans.
The vampire bat has razor-sharp teeth. In fact, they’re so sharp that the bite is just about painless and the sleeping animal or human rarely is awakened by it. Maybe for some twenty minutes or so this bat gorges itself, taking in so much blood that its little body becomes spherical before the meal is over.
Actually, the amount of blood lapped up (not sucked) is not so great as to endanger humans. But there is another peril. Vampire bats may have rabies. So, left unchecked, their bites can result in hydrophobia and death. Vampire bats also transmit other diseases, such as murrina, which affects livestock. These little bats are dangerous, too, because their bites can cause secondary infection.
Always Harmful?
Does this mean that we’re all harmful villains? No. Some of us serve a useful purpose in helping to control the insect population. Others unwittingly carry pollen from flower to flower. Then, too, bat manure, or guano—plentiful on the floors of bat caves—can be used as fertilizer. Did you know that for two decades guano for fertilizer was acquired in commercial amounts from the noted Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico? That’s right.
Why, people have considered us so useful that you might say we’ve been “drafted.” During the American Civil War, from guano the Confederate Army got niter (sodium nitrate) for gunpowder. For that matter, while World War II was raging, there was some effort made to use certain bats to carry little incendiary bombs. I’m certainly happy that idea was abandoned!
Oh! Another thing. In some places, like northern India, those bats called “flying foxes” are eaten. People say their meat resembles that of chicken. But I surely hope this idea of humans eating us doesn’t spread. We have enough trouble trying to get away from snakes, birds of prey and other creatures (even some bats) that think we taste good. Incidentally, people under the Mosaic law were not supposed to eat us.—Lev. 11:13-19.
Now, what about the idea that bats are filthy? Well, just listen to what was said by Ernest P. Walker, onetime assistant director of the United States National Zoological Park, Washington, D.C. He remarked: “Bats are by no means unclean. They’re clean as cats—they groom themselves every morning and after each meal.” In grooming, we use our tongue and toes. We just reach up with one of our hind limbs and scratch the back, face and top of the head.
Some people go around saying we carry bedbugs. Occasionally, parasites, yes. But not bedbugs, if that’s any comfort to you!
We’re Really Unique!
Let me tell you a few things that are sort of special about us. Some of us hibernate. Listen to what James Poling said: “The bat is warm-blooded while active but cold-blooded while slumbering. It is able to go into hibernation more quickly and easily than other mammals—which is why it can so readily be put in the refrigerator. [Some of us are kept there in research laboratories.] It just drops its body temperature and falls asleep; the heart slows from 180 beats a minute to three, respiration drops from eight breaths a second to eight per minute. While the bat has some accumulated fat—as it ordinarily has in early fall before winter hibernation—it can live for months in cold storage, unfed and unattended, the ‘motor idling,’ while waiting its turn to come under laboratory scrutiny.”—Marvels & Mysteries of Our Animal World.
Those of us who do not hibernate in caves or elsewhere during the wintertime migrate to places where we can find food. Besides, some of us think that it’s a good idea to spend the winter months in a warmer climate.
Say, did you know that some of our pregnant females get together in maternity colonies? Noctule bats are a good example of this. Sometimes as many as four hundred of their pregnant females get together and set up “maternity wards” in buildings or trees. Furthermore, some female bats evidently store male sperm. In many cases, we mate in the fall and hibernate during the winter, but our females don’t ovulate until the next spring, permitting fertilization to take place at that time. Isn’t that something?
Our Echolocating System
There are people who use the expression “as blind as a bat.” But we’re not blind and some of us see very well. Anyhow, we have a very special way of getting around, one that baffles men of science. It’s called “echolocation,” and this is how it works:
As we fly about, we emit squeaks, chirps, clicks, buzzes and the like through our mouths or noses. Since these sounds range from 25,000 to 70,000 vibrations a second, you humans—with an auditory range up to only about 30,000 vibrations—can’t hear most of the sounds. But, you know, we don’t hear our own sounds either, because when they are sent out our ear muscles contract, momentarily ‘turning off the sound.’ What we do hear is the echo that bounces off any object that happens to be in our path. In that way, even in total darkness, we can maneuver so as to avoid obstacles.
With all this squeaking, buzzing, and so forth, how do we avoid collisions with one another when many of us flock together? “It is possible,” wrote Thomas R. Henry, “that each animal has its individual sound pattern and is guided only by its own echoes. Otherwise, it would seem, there would be complete confusion from the echoes of several hundred bats moving in a flock.”
Why not take matters a little farther? How do insect-eating bats tell the difference between echoes bouncing off obstacles and those glancing off potential meals? As yet, you folks don’t know, and I’m not saying.
Now, what’s the purpose of all this talking? Well, I just wanted to correct some misconceptions about myself and my fellow fliers. Another thing: I really wanted to impress you with our unique abilities. Of course, we came by them naturally. So, the credit really has to go to the Creator of the only flying mammal.
Let’s Make a Forest!
WHEN one author called Germans the “forest people,” he may have had in mind that the life of the old Germanic tribes was deeply influenced by the huge forests that once covered their land.
The ancient Roman historian Tacitus wrote about one Teutonic or Germanic tribe: “At a stated time of the year, all the several people descended from the same stock, assemble by their deputies in a wood; consecrated by the idolatries of their forefathers, and by superstitious awe in times of old. . . . And of all their superstition, this is the drift and tendency; that from this place the nation drew their original, that here God, the supreme Governor of the world, resides, and that all things else whatsoever are subject to him.”—Germania.
The virgin forests provided the Germanic peoples with wildlife on which to feed, skins with which to clothe themselves and wood for making utensils and for building their homes. At the same time the “gloomy forests,” as Tacitus called them, instilled within the people dread and respect. This misled them into considering some trees, such as certain oak trees, as especially holy. According to Germanic mythology: “The universe is supported by a great ash tree, Yggdrasill . . . The roots of the tree Yggdrasill grow through every world of living and dead. It is watered from a sacred well at its foot, where . . . ‘Destiny,’ decides the fates of men. Lifegiving, meadlike dew falls on the earth from its branches, and a goat that pastures on its leaves gives mead for the gods to drink.”—Encyclopædia Britannica.
But in the course of centuries the Germans’ attitude toward their forests has changed considerably. Whereas formerly the forests were sometimes considered frightening or mysterious, now they are recognized as being valuable. They are assets upon which modern civilization’s very existence is based. For this reason they are to be cherished, cultivated and protected. The book The Forest says: “Today we know the forest as an important source of building materials and a vast reservoir from which modern technology can derive a virtually unlimited number of valuable products such as paper, plastics, turpentine and alcohol.”
But the forest is more than that. This book continues: “The forest is much more than a warehouse for man’s material needs. Its protective covering is renowned as a conservator of soil and water and as a moderator of local climate.” An article in a German newspaper illustrates the point: “Eighty-seven deaths have been caused by a flood catastrophe in four southern provinces of Thailand. Six persons are missing. More than a thousand homes and twenty-four schools are either under water or have been swept away. As a result of the Interior Department’s announcement, the government has attributed the extent of the flooding, which was preceded by torrential rainfall, not least of all to the extensive land-clearing projects that have been carried out in the south of the country during the past years.”—Wiesbadener Kurier, Thursday, January 9, 1975.
Learning How to Do It
The foregoing report is but one of many proofs. They show that man’s unrestricted exploitation of natural resources has resulted in his having, figuratively speaking, cut off the limb on which he is sitting. It was not until the eighteenth century, however, that this was fully realized in Germany. For example, during the early days of industrial development large sections of woodland were cut to provide firewood for glassmaking. Yet even at that time some farsighted men warned of the danger of turning the land into a treeless prairie. Forestry schools were founded and scientific reforestation was started.
The approximately 2,500 square kilometers (some 965 square miles) of lignite on the west side of the Rhine River between Cologne and Bonn illustrates what can be done to keep the earth fit for human habitation. Lignite (or, brown coal) is mined above ground, and such open-pit or strip mining leaves behind a moonlike landscape of huge craters. Thus here was an unusual opportunity for creating an entirely new landscape, doing so not only for economic reasons but also for practical ones, such as its becoming a recreation area. But just how do you ‘make a forest’?
Healing the wounds incurred by surface mining meant first of all the preparing of a soil conducive to the needs of a forest, providing: (1) variety in mineral content, (2) looseness in texture, and (3) sufficient oxygen content by means of aeration. A so-called forest gravel, a mixture of sand, gravel, rocks and loess, met all three requirements. Along with the tree seedlings, lupines, plants of the pea family, were planted to enrich the raw soil. They prove valuable in three ways: Adding nitrogen to the soil; protecting the ground from the sun’s heat, thus preventing it from drying out; and, lastly, preventing the blowing away of fallen leaves that contribute to the formation of humus.
At first, those attempting to make a forest had to learn by experience, for the ecological interbalance between the plants of the forest was not as well understood as today. They did recognize, however, that fast-growing poplar trees would be well suited to serve as pioneer types for reforestation. However, a mono-culture of nothing but poplars could be dangerous. It could encourage the multiplication of certain kinds of insects that could then destroy the entire culture. Planting more than one type of tree was therefore best.
The soil that was prepared proved to be so good that it allowed for planting a variety of trees. A combination of beech and larch trees, interspersed with poplars, was used. Since poplars grow the fastest, they served as a protective covering for more delicate types of trees. Poplar, alder, locust, and willow trees all have good root systems, for they require a great deal of water. How is that useful in making a forest? Well, their roots help to hold the soil firm and prevent soil erosion and landslides caused by water saturation. Using a variety of trees would later avoid barren spots when the mature trees were felled. A healthy mixture of various species is also the best for recreational purposes.
Today in this district of Germany thirty-six different kinds of trees are used in reforestation. A careful study of the conditions under which they grow and their relationship to one another has been made. Even the rare giant redwood and Sequoia trees, which apparently contributed a great deal to the formation of the extensive lignite deposits, are included in a special park. The picture is rounded out by eighteen types of underbrush, including the hazelnut and various kinds of wild roses.
Lakes artistically nestled into the landscape are part of every recreational area. But to take old mining pits and make them into lakes that can be used for swimming and water sports is no easy task. Before more complex forms of plant and animal life appear, the lakes are taken over by those small pioneers of microscopic plant life, the hardy, unpretentious algae. Then the shores are soon framed in reeds, cattails, bulrush, pondweed and water lilies. These are followed by animal life, water fleas, mussels and other living creatures that, in turn, serve as food when the lakes are stocked with fish.
The presence of the lakes even helped the bird population to become more varied than formerly. Marsh and water birds not found here before the lignite was mined took up residence. Before long this restored forest area was populated by species of feathered singers, all adding their contribution to the music that is so relaxing to listen to on an early spring morning. They also do their share in forest preservation by preventing too rapid multiplication of insects. When kept in balance, though, the insects also serve their purpose in building and maintaining a forest.
If you were to dig up a spadeful of forest earth, you likely would be surprised at the number of different creatures and life forms you would find. The Forest spoke of it as “the hidden world of the soil.” It told of an examination by scientists of the top one inch of forest soil. What did they find? “There was an average of 1,356 living creatures present in each square foot, including 865 mites, 265 springtails, 22 millepedes, 19 adult beetles and various numbers of 12 other forms. Had an estimate also been made of the microscopic population, it might have ranged up to two billion bacteria and many millions of fungi, protozoa and algae—in a mere teaspoonful of soil.”—Pages 131, 132.
How useful are these creatures in building a forest? Very. Without them the soil would not be nearly so productive. Moles, hedgehogs and the useful shrew also contribute to the ecological interbalance by controlling insects. And although you would have looked for them in vain on the slag heaps left by strip mining, they seem to feel right at home here in the forest.
In a forest we dare not forget our friends, the rabbit, the squirrel and the deer. It was not long before they, too, found their way back, contributing their part to ecological interbalance. Other arrivals were the fox, the marten, the badger and the polecat. These helped to keep the rabbit and other animals from overpopulating the area and severely damaging the young shoots of the trees.
Outlook for the Future
If you were to ask the many persons strolling down the paths of the well-kept forests of Germany why they enjoy the woods so much, you would no doubt get a variety of answers. Industrial society seeks relaxation in “nature” where the sounds are softer, the movements less hectic. Many persons especially enjoy the cleaner air, for it has been proved that the bark and leaves of trees clean the air by catching dust particles that are then washed down to the ground by the rain. The stillness of a forest, its predominant colors of green and blue, the soft whispering of the leaves, the babbling of a brook—how they calm the nerves, refresh the body and stimulate the spirit!
Many citizens therefore appreciate the fact that some officials are now more conscientious than formerly about seeing to it that trees are not needlessly cut down or woods felled. In accordance with officials’ wishes, the branch office of Jehovah’s Witnesses in West Germany planned their new residence building in such a way that quite a number of young spruce trees on the property could be left standing. Thus the trees are a fine extension of the adjoining forest.
According to newspaper reports, vast numbers of persons are turning their back on religion and leaving the churches emptier than ever. Here in Germany many persons seem to consider taking a walk through the woods as their kind of “Sunday service.” They claim to feel closer to God in the forest than elsewhere. But they need to take care not to make the mistake of going as far as did their ancient ancestors, making nature into a kind of god.
A realistic reader of the “book of nature,” however, is continually amazed when he turns “page after page” and notices the complicated interbalance involved in the ecology of the forest. You can see relationships so hardy and stable that, if given only half a chance by man, they can work wonders. They can turn one-time slag heaps left over from strip mining into recreation spots. But there is also sufficient room for man’s creative and cultivating contributions.—Gen. 1:28.
No less than thirty different branches of science had a part in the reforestation of the Rhine River lignite area. All these scientists learned from the “book of nature” by observation and experience. The enslaving fear that the old Teutonic tribes had of forest spirits and demons is a thing of the past. Instead, increasing knowledge about forests fills us with deep respect for the great Creator, Jehovah God. He is the one who arranged for the marvelous interbalance found in the forest. He also has revealed in his written Word that the entire earth will soon be made into a real global paradise. Would you like to live to see God’s new system of things and perhaps help to make a forest?
The ancient Roman historian Tacitus wrote about one Teutonic or Germanic tribe: “At a stated time of the year, all the several people descended from the same stock, assemble by their deputies in a wood; consecrated by the idolatries of their forefathers, and by superstitious awe in times of old. . . . And of all their superstition, this is the drift and tendency; that from this place the nation drew their original, that here God, the supreme Governor of the world, resides, and that all things else whatsoever are subject to him.”—Germania.
The virgin forests provided the Germanic peoples with wildlife on which to feed, skins with which to clothe themselves and wood for making utensils and for building their homes. At the same time the “gloomy forests,” as Tacitus called them, instilled within the people dread and respect. This misled them into considering some trees, such as certain oak trees, as especially holy. According to Germanic mythology: “The universe is supported by a great ash tree, Yggdrasill . . . The roots of the tree Yggdrasill grow through every world of living and dead. It is watered from a sacred well at its foot, where . . . ‘Destiny,’ decides the fates of men. Lifegiving, meadlike dew falls on the earth from its branches, and a goat that pastures on its leaves gives mead for the gods to drink.”—Encyclopædia Britannica.
But in the course of centuries the Germans’ attitude toward their forests has changed considerably. Whereas formerly the forests were sometimes considered frightening or mysterious, now they are recognized as being valuable. They are assets upon which modern civilization’s very existence is based. For this reason they are to be cherished, cultivated and protected. The book The Forest says: “Today we know the forest as an important source of building materials and a vast reservoir from which modern technology can derive a virtually unlimited number of valuable products such as paper, plastics, turpentine and alcohol.”
But the forest is more than that. This book continues: “The forest is much more than a warehouse for man’s material needs. Its protective covering is renowned as a conservator of soil and water and as a moderator of local climate.” An article in a German newspaper illustrates the point: “Eighty-seven deaths have been caused by a flood catastrophe in four southern provinces of Thailand. Six persons are missing. More than a thousand homes and twenty-four schools are either under water or have been swept away. As a result of the Interior Department’s announcement, the government has attributed the extent of the flooding, which was preceded by torrential rainfall, not least of all to the extensive land-clearing projects that have been carried out in the south of the country during the past years.”—Wiesbadener Kurier, Thursday, January 9, 1975.
Learning How to Do It
The foregoing report is but one of many proofs. They show that man’s unrestricted exploitation of natural resources has resulted in his having, figuratively speaking, cut off the limb on which he is sitting. It was not until the eighteenth century, however, that this was fully realized in Germany. For example, during the early days of industrial development large sections of woodland were cut to provide firewood for glassmaking. Yet even at that time some farsighted men warned of the danger of turning the land into a treeless prairie. Forestry schools were founded and scientific reforestation was started.
The approximately 2,500 square kilometers (some 965 square miles) of lignite on the west side of the Rhine River between Cologne and Bonn illustrates what can be done to keep the earth fit for human habitation. Lignite (or, brown coal) is mined above ground, and such open-pit or strip mining leaves behind a moonlike landscape of huge craters. Thus here was an unusual opportunity for creating an entirely new landscape, doing so not only for economic reasons but also for practical ones, such as its becoming a recreation area. But just how do you ‘make a forest’?
Healing the wounds incurred by surface mining meant first of all the preparing of a soil conducive to the needs of a forest, providing: (1) variety in mineral content, (2) looseness in texture, and (3) sufficient oxygen content by means of aeration. A so-called forest gravel, a mixture of sand, gravel, rocks and loess, met all three requirements. Along with the tree seedlings, lupines, plants of the pea family, were planted to enrich the raw soil. They prove valuable in three ways: Adding nitrogen to the soil; protecting the ground from the sun’s heat, thus preventing it from drying out; and, lastly, preventing the blowing away of fallen leaves that contribute to the formation of humus.
At first, those attempting to make a forest had to learn by experience, for the ecological interbalance between the plants of the forest was not as well understood as today. They did recognize, however, that fast-growing poplar trees would be well suited to serve as pioneer types for reforestation. However, a mono-culture of nothing but poplars could be dangerous. It could encourage the multiplication of certain kinds of insects that could then destroy the entire culture. Planting more than one type of tree was therefore best.
The soil that was prepared proved to be so good that it allowed for planting a variety of trees. A combination of beech and larch trees, interspersed with poplars, was used. Since poplars grow the fastest, they served as a protective covering for more delicate types of trees. Poplar, alder, locust, and willow trees all have good root systems, for they require a great deal of water. How is that useful in making a forest? Well, their roots help to hold the soil firm and prevent soil erosion and landslides caused by water saturation. Using a variety of trees would later avoid barren spots when the mature trees were felled. A healthy mixture of various species is also the best for recreational purposes.
Today in this district of Germany thirty-six different kinds of trees are used in reforestation. A careful study of the conditions under which they grow and their relationship to one another has been made. Even the rare giant redwood and Sequoia trees, which apparently contributed a great deal to the formation of the extensive lignite deposits, are included in a special park. The picture is rounded out by eighteen types of underbrush, including the hazelnut and various kinds of wild roses.
Lakes artistically nestled into the landscape are part of every recreational area. But to take old mining pits and make them into lakes that can be used for swimming and water sports is no easy task. Before more complex forms of plant and animal life appear, the lakes are taken over by those small pioneers of microscopic plant life, the hardy, unpretentious algae. Then the shores are soon framed in reeds, cattails, bulrush, pondweed and water lilies. These are followed by animal life, water fleas, mussels and other living creatures that, in turn, serve as food when the lakes are stocked with fish.
The presence of the lakes even helped the bird population to become more varied than formerly. Marsh and water birds not found here before the lignite was mined took up residence. Before long this restored forest area was populated by species of feathered singers, all adding their contribution to the music that is so relaxing to listen to on an early spring morning. They also do their share in forest preservation by preventing too rapid multiplication of insects. When kept in balance, though, the insects also serve their purpose in building and maintaining a forest.
If you were to dig up a spadeful of forest earth, you likely would be surprised at the number of different creatures and life forms you would find. The Forest spoke of it as “the hidden world of the soil.” It told of an examination by scientists of the top one inch of forest soil. What did they find? “There was an average of 1,356 living creatures present in each square foot, including 865 mites, 265 springtails, 22 millepedes, 19 adult beetles and various numbers of 12 other forms. Had an estimate also been made of the microscopic population, it might have ranged up to two billion bacteria and many millions of fungi, protozoa and algae—in a mere teaspoonful of soil.”—Pages 131, 132.
How useful are these creatures in building a forest? Very. Without them the soil would not be nearly so productive. Moles, hedgehogs and the useful shrew also contribute to the ecological interbalance by controlling insects. And although you would have looked for them in vain on the slag heaps left by strip mining, they seem to feel right at home here in the forest.
In a forest we dare not forget our friends, the rabbit, the squirrel and the deer. It was not long before they, too, found their way back, contributing their part to ecological interbalance. Other arrivals were the fox, the marten, the badger and the polecat. These helped to keep the rabbit and other animals from overpopulating the area and severely damaging the young shoots of the trees.
Outlook for the Future
If you were to ask the many persons strolling down the paths of the well-kept forests of Germany why they enjoy the woods so much, you would no doubt get a variety of answers. Industrial society seeks relaxation in “nature” where the sounds are softer, the movements less hectic. Many persons especially enjoy the cleaner air, for it has been proved that the bark and leaves of trees clean the air by catching dust particles that are then washed down to the ground by the rain. The stillness of a forest, its predominant colors of green and blue, the soft whispering of the leaves, the babbling of a brook—how they calm the nerves, refresh the body and stimulate the spirit!
Many citizens therefore appreciate the fact that some officials are now more conscientious than formerly about seeing to it that trees are not needlessly cut down or woods felled. In accordance with officials’ wishes, the branch office of Jehovah’s Witnesses in West Germany planned their new residence building in such a way that quite a number of young spruce trees on the property could be left standing. Thus the trees are a fine extension of the adjoining forest.
According to newspaper reports, vast numbers of persons are turning their back on religion and leaving the churches emptier than ever. Here in Germany many persons seem to consider taking a walk through the woods as their kind of “Sunday service.” They claim to feel closer to God in the forest than elsewhere. But they need to take care not to make the mistake of going as far as did their ancient ancestors, making nature into a kind of god.
A realistic reader of the “book of nature,” however, is continually amazed when he turns “page after page” and notices the complicated interbalance involved in the ecology of the forest. You can see relationships so hardy and stable that, if given only half a chance by man, they can work wonders. They can turn one-time slag heaps left over from strip mining into recreation spots. But there is also sufficient room for man’s creative and cultivating contributions.—Gen. 1:28.
No less than thirty different branches of science had a part in the reforestation of the Rhine River lignite area. All these scientists learned from the “book of nature” by observation and experience. The enslaving fear that the old Teutonic tribes had of forest spirits and demons is a thing of the past. Instead, increasing knowledge about forests fills us with deep respect for the great Creator, Jehovah God. He is the one who arranged for the marvelous interbalance found in the forest. He also has revealed in his written Word that the entire earth will soon be made into a real global paradise. Would you like to live to see God’s new system of things and perhaps help to make a forest?
That Amazing Fluid Within You!
MANY individuals are uncomfortable or squeamish about blood. Are you? You may want your blood ‘under your skin,’ that is, in your blood vessels where it should be. How right you are! That is where it belongs, for there it serves you every second. You are alive because of your blood. But just what is your blood? Do you know its parts? How does it serve you? Why is your blood uniquely your blood?
What It Is
You have seen your blood, perhaps more often than you would prefer. It may appear to be simply a red fluid. But note what the Encyclopædia Britannica (1974) says about it:
“The blood has an almost unbelievably complex structure, and many components participate in its functional activities, often in an intricate and poorly understood way.”
In some senses your blood might be illustrated by a glass of iced lemonade. Basically, lemonade is water in which lemon juice and sugar are mixed or dissolved. Also, some pieces of ice and lemon pulp float in the liquid. Your blood is similar. It is a complex mixture with two basic parts. The largest part is the fluid or plasma. It is 91.5 percent water, but it contains hundreds of chemicals and soluble constituents, such as hormones, sugar, salts, cholesterol, proteins, minerals, and so forth. The other basic part of your blood is the “solids” or formed elements that are carried in the plasma.
Your blood system as a whole and also its individual components perform a vast array of important functions. Are you aware of some of them? Well, as we discuss the blood components watch for the six main functions of this complex fluid.
Your Red Blood Cells
Have you ever wondered why your blood is red? That is because of the red cells (erythrocytes) in your blood. In one cubic millimeter, about as big as the dot on an “i,” a man has some five million red cells. You have about half a million less if you are a woman. Each red cell is a tiny rounded disk that is slightly indented on the two sides. You cannot see them with the unaided eye, for it would take 3,200 of them placed side by side to measure an inch (2.5 centimeters).
Without any conscious effort you are constantly forming these important red cells in the bone marrow of your ribs, skull and vertebrae. Why? Well, each second some 1.2 million of them wear out and are removed by your spleen and liver. Yet, the iron and other important materials of your worn-out red cells are used in various ways, including the making of new cells.
What, however, are your red cells doing during their “life-span” of about four months? Respiration is their key function. You may associate respiration with your lungs. Yet how does the oxygen in the air you breathe get from your lungs to the 60 trillion cells of your body? Your red cells rise to the occasion. In your lungs each red blood cell picks up oxygen, just as a truck might load up at a warehouse. A red cell contains an iron-rich protein called hemoglobin that oxidizes or “rusts,” as it were, in your lungs, that is, it unites with oxygen, becoming bright red. Then comes a quick trip to deliver this to the customers, your body cells. From your lungs the blood speeds to your heart, where it gets a strong push, carrying it through progressively smaller arteries until it reaches the minute capillaries throughout your body. As each red cell passes single-file through a capillary, it quickly delivers up its cargo of oxygen and makes a pickup for the return trip. Your body cells then “burn” oxygen and nutrients to produce energy for you so you can move, think and keep warm. So in the brief passage through your capillaries the blood delivers oxygen and collects the by-product carbon dioxide, which is brought back to your lungs for discharging.
During a blood test your doctor checks as to whether you have a normal amount of healthy red cells. A shortage spells anemia. If that exists, it might mean that you need more iron-containing food in your diet. But a low red-cell count also alerts your doctor to check to see if you might be losing blood internally, as from a bleeding ulcer. Or a serious deficiency could be caused by some problem in your bone marrow. In any event, the condition should be investigated carefully, for there is no known substitute for red cells in bringing oxygen to your body cells.
White Blood Cells
Overshadowed in number, if not in importance, by their red companions are your white blood cells (leukocytes), some 5,000 to 10,000 in each cubic millimeter of blood. These, unlike the red cells, are independently mobile. They can move to where they are needed, either in the bloodstream or outside it. Simply stated, their crucial job is defense. Yes, they are constantly saving your life.
You have various types of white blood cells. Two of them, your granulocytes and monocytes, serve as ever-vigilant “policemen” within you. By accident you might scratch your arm, letting dangerous bacteria into your body. Immediately these “policemen” are alerted. They are able to pass through the walls of your capillaries and engulf invading bacteria, digesting them with potent enzymes. The pus that forms at the site of an infection tells you that they are on the job, for it consists mainly of white cells and defeated bacteria. White cells also respond if you have an infection inside your body, such as appendicitis. In fact, one way your doctor can confirm the seriousness of such diseases is by checking your white-blood-cell count. If it is elevated, it indicates that your white cells are rallying to fight an acute infection.
Another type of white cells, your lymphocytes, is involved with your developing immunity and with acquired resistance to infections. Somehow they recognize what is part of your body and what is foreign. For instance, if skin from one part of your body is grafted on another part, it will likely adhere and survive. But if the skin is from someone else, lymphocytes migrate to the area, recognize “That’s not mine” and begin rejecting it. They also have a “memory” that aids you to be immune to various diseases.
Your Platelets
Imagine trying to carry water in a sieve. Were it not for your platelets, it would be just as hard to keep the blood within the circulatory system. A platelet is a small, colorless and flexible blob of cellular material. Does that sound unimpressive? Well, what your platelets do certainly is not. If you cut yourself, within seconds platelets attach themselves to the injured area and to one another. Thus they plug the wound and stop bleeding. What “glue” causes them to do this at a wound but not inside your bloodstream? There you have another deep mystery. Also, they release factors that stimulate the formation of a more durable sealing clot.
If our simplified consideration of your blood’s “solids” or formed elements has impressed you with its importance, what about your plasma, the liquid part that is 55 percent of your blood by volume?
The Other 55 Percent
A tasty meal is a delight! But once you digest the food it must get to the cells in order to be useful to the body. Silently but efficiently your blood plasma does the job, thus providing nutrition for every cell in your body. It delivers carbohydrates, fats, proteins, minerals, salts and vitamins to where they are needed.
Your plasma does not come back from that delivery job “empty” either. Besides carbon dioxide, other wastes must be removed from the cells. Your plasma does this, thus playing an important role in excretion. For example, it transports urea and uric acid from your cells to your kidneys, where they are eliminated.
If you are too warm, capillaries near your skin open, allowing the blood to carry excess heat to the surface. Conversely, when it is cold the blood stays deeper inside the body and so conserves body heat. Yes, your blood contributes to temperature regulation; it helps to maintain a uniform body temperature of about 98.6° F. (37° C.).
Recall the role of the platelets in keeping your pressurized blood from escaping from your blood vessels. This important role is called hemostasis. The plasma contains a number of important substances or factors that also contribute to this, for they are vital in blood clotting. Hemophilia is a dangerous condition where one or more of these factors are missing. But this is rare. With most of us, when we cut ourselves or are injured, a very complicated process begins that results in a blood clot. Fibrinogen is an important protein in your blood plasma that plays a role in the wound’s being sealed by a tough layer of fibers and cells. Then no more blood escapes and the body can repair the damage.
Your plasma also contains albumin. It works to retain water in your bloodstream, thus keeping the plasma in a liquid state and flowing in your system. If you experienced edema or swelling of your body, a blood test might show that your albumin level had dropped, and so let water from your blood escape through capillary walls and accumulate in your body tissue.
When it comes to amazing aspects of your blood, we cannot overlook the globulins in the plasma. When harmful bacteria or viruses invade your body, your defense system reacts by producing special molecules called antibodies. These are contained in the globulins. The antibodies kill or neutralize the invaders, which are then eaten by your white blood cells.
What a memory these antibodies have! Scientists earth wide marvel over it. Perhaps as a child you had chicken pox. Even if you have forgotten the disease, your antibodies have not. As long as the antibodies are present and active, you are immune to having the disease again. If a chicken-pox virus invades your body, your antibodies immediately pounce on it. During your life you develop naturally an enormous number of different specific antibodies that protect you from many diseases.
Globulins and antibodies are sometimes used as a treatment when a person has already contracted a disease, such as diphtheria. Instead of taking the risk of allowing the disease to run its course, doctors might recommend accepting a serum prepared from the blood of an animal or human that already contains the right antibodies.
One of the most widely known things about human blood is that there are various blood types. You may have heard of ‘type A blood’ or some of the other common types, B, AB, and O. If a person with one blood type is transfused with another blood type likely he will become severely ill and perhaps die. So hospitals try to “match” his blood type with that of blood from a blood bank. So far fifteen different blood types have been identified.
But since your blood is so very complex, with unnumbered unique combinations of antibodies, hormones, proteins and other factors, can you expect that doctors truly can “match” your blood with someone else’s? In 1966, Science Digest observed: “It is estimated that only one transfusion in 10,000 is completely compatible, considering the number of known factors that make blood different.”
Since that was written, even more has been learned that shows how distinctive your blood is, different from that of any other person. Thus, in 1974, Readers Digest said:
“There is a growing probability that [a man’s] blood may be quite as distinctive as his fingerprints, different from all other bloods on earth. In fact, it might be possible to take a blood sample from each person in a large stadium right now, and then a year from now take another sample and assign each fan his proper seat—on the basis of individual blood characteristics.”
There is increasing realization in the medical community of the potentially dangerous reactions from transfused blood, to say nothing of the possibility of transmission of diseases such as hepatitis and syphilis by means of transfusions. These problems merely underscore the wisdom of the Bible’s prohibition against sustaining one’s life by taking in animal or human blood.—Gen. 9:3, 4; Acts 15:19, 20
There is no question that your blood is amazing in its composition and functions. Yet with just a basic knowledge of some of its components and how it daily sustains and preserves your life, you can well appreciate the Creator’s choosing blood as a symbol of life. He said: “For the soul [or life] of the flesh is in the blood. . . . That is why I have said to [you]: ‘No soul of you must eat blood.’”—Lev. 17:11, 12.
What It Is
You have seen your blood, perhaps more often than you would prefer. It may appear to be simply a red fluid. But note what the Encyclopædia Britannica (1974) says about it:
“The blood has an almost unbelievably complex structure, and many components participate in its functional activities, often in an intricate and poorly understood way.”
In some senses your blood might be illustrated by a glass of iced lemonade. Basically, lemonade is water in which lemon juice and sugar are mixed or dissolved. Also, some pieces of ice and lemon pulp float in the liquid. Your blood is similar. It is a complex mixture with two basic parts. The largest part is the fluid or plasma. It is 91.5 percent water, but it contains hundreds of chemicals and soluble constituents, such as hormones, sugar, salts, cholesterol, proteins, minerals, and so forth. The other basic part of your blood is the “solids” or formed elements that are carried in the plasma.
Your blood system as a whole and also its individual components perform a vast array of important functions. Are you aware of some of them? Well, as we discuss the blood components watch for the six main functions of this complex fluid.
Your Red Blood Cells
Have you ever wondered why your blood is red? That is because of the red cells (erythrocytes) in your blood. In one cubic millimeter, about as big as the dot on an “i,” a man has some five million red cells. You have about half a million less if you are a woman. Each red cell is a tiny rounded disk that is slightly indented on the two sides. You cannot see them with the unaided eye, for it would take 3,200 of them placed side by side to measure an inch (2.5 centimeters).
Without any conscious effort you are constantly forming these important red cells in the bone marrow of your ribs, skull and vertebrae. Why? Well, each second some 1.2 million of them wear out and are removed by your spleen and liver. Yet, the iron and other important materials of your worn-out red cells are used in various ways, including the making of new cells.
What, however, are your red cells doing during their “life-span” of about four months? Respiration is their key function. You may associate respiration with your lungs. Yet how does the oxygen in the air you breathe get from your lungs to the 60 trillion cells of your body? Your red cells rise to the occasion. In your lungs each red blood cell picks up oxygen, just as a truck might load up at a warehouse. A red cell contains an iron-rich protein called hemoglobin that oxidizes or “rusts,” as it were, in your lungs, that is, it unites with oxygen, becoming bright red. Then comes a quick trip to deliver this to the customers, your body cells. From your lungs the blood speeds to your heart, where it gets a strong push, carrying it through progressively smaller arteries until it reaches the minute capillaries throughout your body. As each red cell passes single-file through a capillary, it quickly delivers up its cargo of oxygen and makes a pickup for the return trip. Your body cells then “burn” oxygen and nutrients to produce energy for you so you can move, think and keep warm. So in the brief passage through your capillaries the blood delivers oxygen and collects the by-product carbon dioxide, which is brought back to your lungs for discharging.
During a blood test your doctor checks as to whether you have a normal amount of healthy red cells. A shortage spells anemia. If that exists, it might mean that you need more iron-containing food in your diet. But a low red-cell count also alerts your doctor to check to see if you might be losing blood internally, as from a bleeding ulcer. Or a serious deficiency could be caused by some problem in your bone marrow. In any event, the condition should be investigated carefully, for there is no known substitute for red cells in bringing oxygen to your body cells.
White Blood Cells
Overshadowed in number, if not in importance, by their red companions are your white blood cells (leukocytes), some 5,000 to 10,000 in each cubic millimeter of blood. These, unlike the red cells, are independently mobile. They can move to where they are needed, either in the bloodstream or outside it. Simply stated, their crucial job is defense. Yes, they are constantly saving your life.
You have various types of white blood cells. Two of them, your granulocytes and monocytes, serve as ever-vigilant “policemen” within you. By accident you might scratch your arm, letting dangerous bacteria into your body. Immediately these “policemen” are alerted. They are able to pass through the walls of your capillaries and engulf invading bacteria, digesting them with potent enzymes. The pus that forms at the site of an infection tells you that they are on the job, for it consists mainly of white cells and defeated bacteria. White cells also respond if you have an infection inside your body, such as appendicitis. In fact, one way your doctor can confirm the seriousness of such diseases is by checking your white-blood-cell count. If it is elevated, it indicates that your white cells are rallying to fight an acute infection.
Another type of white cells, your lymphocytes, is involved with your developing immunity and with acquired resistance to infections. Somehow they recognize what is part of your body and what is foreign. For instance, if skin from one part of your body is grafted on another part, it will likely adhere and survive. But if the skin is from someone else, lymphocytes migrate to the area, recognize “That’s not mine” and begin rejecting it. They also have a “memory” that aids you to be immune to various diseases.
Your Platelets
Imagine trying to carry water in a sieve. Were it not for your platelets, it would be just as hard to keep the blood within the circulatory system. A platelet is a small, colorless and flexible blob of cellular material. Does that sound unimpressive? Well, what your platelets do certainly is not. If you cut yourself, within seconds platelets attach themselves to the injured area and to one another. Thus they plug the wound and stop bleeding. What “glue” causes them to do this at a wound but not inside your bloodstream? There you have another deep mystery. Also, they release factors that stimulate the formation of a more durable sealing clot.
If our simplified consideration of your blood’s “solids” or formed elements has impressed you with its importance, what about your plasma, the liquid part that is 55 percent of your blood by volume?
The Other 55 Percent
A tasty meal is a delight! But once you digest the food it must get to the cells in order to be useful to the body. Silently but efficiently your blood plasma does the job, thus providing nutrition for every cell in your body. It delivers carbohydrates, fats, proteins, minerals, salts and vitamins to where they are needed.
Your plasma does not come back from that delivery job “empty” either. Besides carbon dioxide, other wastes must be removed from the cells. Your plasma does this, thus playing an important role in excretion. For example, it transports urea and uric acid from your cells to your kidneys, where they are eliminated.
If you are too warm, capillaries near your skin open, allowing the blood to carry excess heat to the surface. Conversely, when it is cold the blood stays deeper inside the body and so conserves body heat. Yes, your blood contributes to temperature regulation; it helps to maintain a uniform body temperature of about 98.6° F. (37° C.).
Recall the role of the platelets in keeping your pressurized blood from escaping from your blood vessels. This important role is called hemostasis. The plasma contains a number of important substances or factors that also contribute to this, for they are vital in blood clotting. Hemophilia is a dangerous condition where one or more of these factors are missing. But this is rare. With most of us, when we cut ourselves or are injured, a very complicated process begins that results in a blood clot. Fibrinogen is an important protein in your blood plasma that plays a role in the wound’s being sealed by a tough layer of fibers and cells. Then no more blood escapes and the body can repair the damage.
Your plasma also contains albumin. It works to retain water in your bloodstream, thus keeping the plasma in a liquid state and flowing in your system. If you experienced edema or swelling of your body, a blood test might show that your albumin level had dropped, and so let water from your blood escape through capillary walls and accumulate in your body tissue.
When it comes to amazing aspects of your blood, we cannot overlook the globulins in the plasma. When harmful bacteria or viruses invade your body, your defense system reacts by producing special molecules called antibodies. These are contained in the globulins. The antibodies kill or neutralize the invaders, which are then eaten by your white blood cells.
What a memory these antibodies have! Scientists earth wide marvel over it. Perhaps as a child you had chicken pox. Even if you have forgotten the disease, your antibodies have not. As long as the antibodies are present and active, you are immune to having the disease again. If a chicken-pox virus invades your body, your antibodies immediately pounce on it. During your life you develop naturally an enormous number of different specific antibodies that protect you from many diseases.
Globulins and antibodies are sometimes used as a treatment when a person has already contracted a disease, such as diphtheria. Instead of taking the risk of allowing the disease to run its course, doctors might recommend accepting a serum prepared from the blood of an animal or human that already contains the right antibodies.
One of the most widely known things about human blood is that there are various blood types. You may have heard of ‘type A blood’ or some of the other common types, B, AB, and O. If a person with one blood type is transfused with another blood type likely he will become severely ill and perhaps die. So hospitals try to “match” his blood type with that of blood from a blood bank. So far fifteen different blood types have been identified.
But since your blood is so very complex, with unnumbered unique combinations of antibodies, hormones, proteins and other factors, can you expect that doctors truly can “match” your blood with someone else’s? In 1966, Science Digest observed: “It is estimated that only one transfusion in 10,000 is completely compatible, considering the number of known factors that make blood different.”
Since that was written, even more has been learned that shows how distinctive your blood is, different from that of any other person. Thus, in 1974, Readers Digest said:
“There is a growing probability that [a man’s] blood may be quite as distinctive as his fingerprints, different from all other bloods on earth. In fact, it might be possible to take a blood sample from each person in a large stadium right now, and then a year from now take another sample and assign each fan his proper seat—on the basis of individual blood characteristics.”
There is increasing realization in the medical community of the potentially dangerous reactions from transfused blood, to say nothing of the possibility of transmission of diseases such as hepatitis and syphilis by means of transfusions. These problems merely underscore the wisdom of the Bible’s prohibition against sustaining one’s life by taking in animal or human blood.—Gen. 9:3, 4; Acts 15:19, 20
There is no question that your blood is amazing in its composition and functions. Yet with just a basic knowledge of some of its components and how it daily sustains and preserves your life, you can well appreciate the Creator’s choosing blood as a symbol of life. He said: “For the soul [or life] of the flesh is in the blood. . . . That is why I have said to [you]: ‘No soul of you must eat blood.’”—Lev. 17:11, 12.
Antibiotics—Double-edged Swords
PENICILLIN, the first and most widely used antibiotic, was discovered back in 1928 by the British bacteriologist Alexander Fleming. But he and his colaborers had many obstacles to overcome, and so it was not until World War II that it finally came to be recognized for its value in combating infections.
The results with penicillin were so remarkable that it was termed a “miracle” or “wonder” drug, and since then many, many other antibiotics have been developed, both organic and synthetic. There is no question about these antibiotics, such as penicillin, having accomplished much good, saving many a life, shortening the recovery time of many a victim of accident or illness.
But the use of antibiotics has not been an unmixed blessing. Why not? Because of the very nature of antibiotics. The name itself should prove a warning, for it comes from two roots: anti, meaning “opposed,” and bio, meaning “life.” So an antibiotic is an agent opposed to life, that is, it is a killer. A killer of what? Of germs, bacteria, microbes, for which reason “antimicrobials” seems to be preferred in medical literature. “Antimicrobiais” are said to have “toxicity,” that is, poisonous characteristics as well as other harmful potentials in addition to therapeutic qualities.
Thus Dr. Robert C. Zurek, writing in Diseases of Medical Progress, states: “Whenever we employ an antimicrobial agent, we are wielding a truly double-edge sword. We take a calculated risk.” That is, the physician hopes to kill certain microbes without harming the cells of the body.
But is this fact fully appreciated by the medical profession, not to mention the public at large? Apparently it is not, for as Dr. F. D. Adams states in the foreword to the above-mentioned textbook “drugs are frequently administered . . . apparently without due regard for their disquieting and sometimes dangerous potentialities. One need but mention, for example, the widespread use of antibiotics for trivial upper respiratory infections and comparable minor ailments—a practice that seems to continue in spite of the exhortations of many qualified authorities that these agents are, as a rule, ineffective in such cases.”
A committee for the United States Health, Education and Welfare Department brought out that in one study of 1,045 patients, 340 were receiving antibiotics but only 13 percent of these (or some 45) actually should have received such medication. In another report a physician tells that from “90 to 99 percent of those who were receiving chloramphenicol were getting it for a non-indicated purpose.” And Drs. Silverman and Lee, in their book Pills, Profits, and Politics, state that at times antibiotics “have caused illnesses more severe than the diseases they were intended to combat.”
Indicative of the overuse of antibiotics is the fact that in the United States, in the 1971-1972 fiscal year, roughly 26,400 tons of antibiotics were produced and certified for distribution. This is enough for fifty doses for every man, woman and child in the country. According to Dr. H. F. Dowling, a highly respected authority on this subject, “it is doubtful that the average person has an illness that requires treatment with an antibiotic more often than once every five or ten years.”
Helping to account for this great consumption of antibiotics is their use in hospitals. On an average day some 40 percent of the patients are given at least one antibiotic. According to a leading authority on this subject, “it is inconceivable to me . . . to believe that 40 percent of the patients in the hospital require an antimicrobial drug. . . . I think that there is no question but that these drugs are . . . used excessively.”
Obviously, all such overuse of drugs results in much needless expense for the patients or their families or whoever else pays the bills. One hospital, recognizing this problem, organized an antimicrobial committee to monitor the use of such drugs. As a result, it was able to cut down the use of them by 20 percent. If all hospitals in the United States followed suit, it would mean an annual saving of $117,000,000. Another study showed that 93 percent of the patients receiving an antibiotic costing $12 a prescription were receiving it needlessly.
Cutting the Wrong Way
Just how serious is the double-edged aspect of antibiotics? According to Dr. Zurek, “the list of untoward effects is enormously long,” and “it would seem there is a true ever-increasing incidence of adverse drug reactions.”
While some may hold them to be exceptions, take note of these examples: There was a man of twenty-five years with a sore throat. His doctor gave him an antibiotic, chloramphenicol, for nine days. In less than two months he had very severe symptoms caused by this drug and in six months he was dead.
Then there was a woman forty-seven years old who was treated for a sore throat with penicillin. In three days she had all manner of complications, such as red lumps on her body, itching and difficulty in urinating. In spite of the use of an artificial kidney machine, she died.
In another instance a twelve-year-old girl was treated with chloramphenicol. It resulted in her being afflicted with a dangerous blood disease, from which she died. According to another report, hundreds of persons have died from chloramphenicol (trade name “Chloromycetin”), and in spite of the fact that for more than twenty-five years doctors have been warned about this drug, it is still being prescribed unnecessarily.
Why this overuse of antibiotics? With the advent of antibiotic therapy, the treatment of most infectious diseases took on a new specificity. At least something was available that could attack the germs causing the disease. Where a cause could not be isolated, the antibiotic was given empirically, that is, without sound basis, by enthusiastic doctors. And what is more, the patient many times demanded it. As a consequence, there has been much unjustified use of antibiotics.
No doubt another reason for the overuse of antibiotics is the desire of doctors just to do something, tending to consider only the potential benefits of these drugs. Still another reason, suggested by S. M. Wolfe, director of Ralph Nader’s Health Resource Group, is the possibility that for information about drugs doctors depend too much on the biased sales pitches of drug company representatives.
Why Two-edged?
Why do antibiotics help many people but not help all? Why are they so often two-edged swords? One factor is the physical condition of the patient. Powerful antibiotics are likely to have powerful toxic side effects. It is the function of the liver and the kidneys to get rid of toxic agents. But if the liver is diseased or the kidneys function inadequately, they may not get rid of the toxic residues of the antibiotic and, as a result, the cells of the body succumb to the poisons and the patient sickens and may even die.
An even more frequent cause of complications resulting from the use of antibiotics is allergy or some type of intolerance. Any patient may be allergic to one or more antibiotics, as a result of which harm and even death may come to the patient. For example, of more than a thousand reported life-threatening reactions caused by antibiotics, the vast majority involved penicillin, and, of these, 10 percent were fatal.
There is also the problem of microbes developing drug immunity, resisting the bacteriocidal effect of the antibiotic. This has been seen recently in the treatment of gonorrhea. For years the gonococcus germ causing this disease was extremely sensitive to penicillin so that recovery from this disease was almost certain if the antibiotic was administered. Lately, however, penicillin-resistant strains of gonococcus have developed, so that now other, less effective drugs have to be used.
Still another reason why an antibiotic may turn out to be a double-edged sword is that it may wipe out all except certain strains, which then increase and cause completely new or complicating diseases. Such “superinfections” are caused by the microbes not susceptible to the antibiotic but which have been kept in check by the other microbes in a sort of “natural” balance.
Regarding this aspect of matters, The Sunday News, Detroit, Michigan, July 28, 1974, told of doctors warning that overuse of the most widely administered antibiotic has fostered development of a new resistant kind of infant brain inflammation. The antibiotic is ampicillin, a synthetic form of penicillin. According to Dr. S. Ross of the Children’s Hospital in Washington, D.C., “ampicillin has been beaten to death by being used indiscriminately by physicians both inside and outside the hospital.” It “used to be the drug of choice for . . . a serious intestinal disease. In 1967, 5 percent of [such] cases were resistant to it. Now 95 percent are resistant. . . . The growing resistance scares . . . us.”
An example of this is the potential effect of some antibiotics on the intestinal flora, the useful bacterial population of the intestines so essential to the proper and maximum assimilation of food. According to many practitioners, continued use of antibiotics may kill not only harmful bacteria but also much of the intestinal flora. For this reason certain practitioners urge the use of yogurt or like milk products whenever a person is taking antibiotics.
What Can You Do About It?
Some might conclude from the foregoing that all this information is the concern of physicians, not of their patients. But is that so?If so many doctors are not sufficiently cautious, even as their own spokesmen confess, perhaps the “layman” should show concern. That is the position taken by Science Digest, January 1975. It states: “All antimicrobials—as a group—are overused and abused by physicians in general to the point where the public must learn to protect itself by learning the dangers, for clearly doctors as a group are blowing it.”
From the foregoing it is apparent that you should be very careful about using antibiotics. Never urge your doctor to prescribe antibiotics. Never use those prescribed to others; never experiment yourself. Let your doctor know of your past use of antibiotics, whether unfavorable or not; also let him know what other drugs you may be taking. If he prescribes antibiotics, inquire as to an alternate treatment. If they seem imperative, then follow his instructions closely.
To sum up, we cannot do better than to quote from the “Concluding Remarks” in Dr. Zurek’s chapter, “Antibiotic-induced Diseases”: “It is hoped this review of untoward reactions to antimicrobial agents will foster appropriate respect for these drugs. Their use has produced tragedies as well as miracles. None are completely without hazard. . . . Successful antibiotic therapy can be achieved only by knowledge of the capabilities of these agents and a constant awareness of their hazards.”
The results with penicillin were so remarkable that it was termed a “miracle” or “wonder” drug, and since then many, many other antibiotics have been developed, both organic and synthetic. There is no question about these antibiotics, such as penicillin, having accomplished much good, saving many a life, shortening the recovery time of many a victim of accident or illness.
But the use of antibiotics has not been an unmixed blessing. Why not? Because of the very nature of antibiotics. The name itself should prove a warning, for it comes from two roots: anti, meaning “opposed,” and bio, meaning “life.” So an antibiotic is an agent opposed to life, that is, it is a killer. A killer of what? Of germs, bacteria, microbes, for which reason “antimicrobials” seems to be preferred in medical literature. “Antimicrobiais” are said to have “toxicity,” that is, poisonous characteristics as well as other harmful potentials in addition to therapeutic qualities.
Thus Dr. Robert C. Zurek, writing in Diseases of Medical Progress, states: “Whenever we employ an antimicrobial agent, we are wielding a truly double-edge sword. We take a calculated risk.” That is, the physician hopes to kill certain microbes without harming the cells of the body.
But is this fact fully appreciated by the medical profession, not to mention the public at large? Apparently it is not, for as Dr. F. D. Adams states in the foreword to the above-mentioned textbook “drugs are frequently administered . . . apparently without due regard for their disquieting and sometimes dangerous potentialities. One need but mention, for example, the widespread use of antibiotics for trivial upper respiratory infections and comparable minor ailments—a practice that seems to continue in spite of the exhortations of many qualified authorities that these agents are, as a rule, ineffective in such cases.”
A committee for the United States Health, Education and Welfare Department brought out that in one study of 1,045 patients, 340 were receiving antibiotics but only 13 percent of these (or some 45) actually should have received such medication. In another report a physician tells that from “90 to 99 percent of those who were receiving chloramphenicol were getting it for a non-indicated purpose.” And Drs. Silverman and Lee, in their book Pills, Profits, and Politics, state that at times antibiotics “have caused illnesses more severe than the diseases they were intended to combat.”
Indicative of the overuse of antibiotics is the fact that in the United States, in the 1971-1972 fiscal year, roughly 26,400 tons of antibiotics were produced and certified for distribution. This is enough for fifty doses for every man, woman and child in the country. According to Dr. H. F. Dowling, a highly respected authority on this subject, “it is doubtful that the average person has an illness that requires treatment with an antibiotic more often than once every five or ten years.”
Helping to account for this great consumption of antibiotics is their use in hospitals. On an average day some 40 percent of the patients are given at least one antibiotic. According to a leading authority on this subject, “it is inconceivable to me . . . to believe that 40 percent of the patients in the hospital require an antimicrobial drug. . . . I think that there is no question but that these drugs are . . . used excessively.”
Obviously, all such overuse of drugs results in much needless expense for the patients or their families or whoever else pays the bills. One hospital, recognizing this problem, organized an antimicrobial committee to monitor the use of such drugs. As a result, it was able to cut down the use of them by 20 percent. If all hospitals in the United States followed suit, it would mean an annual saving of $117,000,000. Another study showed that 93 percent of the patients receiving an antibiotic costing $12 a prescription were receiving it needlessly.
Cutting the Wrong Way
Just how serious is the double-edged aspect of antibiotics? According to Dr. Zurek, “the list of untoward effects is enormously long,” and “it would seem there is a true ever-increasing incidence of adverse drug reactions.”
While some may hold them to be exceptions, take note of these examples: There was a man of twenty-five years with a sore throat. His doctor gave him an antibiotic, chloramphenicol, for nine days. In less than two months he had very severe symptoms caused by this drug and in six months he was dead.
Then there was a woman forty-seven years old who was treated for a sore throat with penicillin. In three days she had all manner of complications, such as red lumps on her body, itching and difficulty in urinating. In spite of the use of an artificial kidney machine, she died.
In another instance a twelve-year-old girl was treated with chloramphenicol. It resulted in her being afflicted with a dangerous blood disease, from which she died. According to another report, hundreds of persons have died from chloramphenicol (trade name “Chloromycetin”), and in spite of the fact that for more than twenty-five years doctors have been warned about this drug, it is still being prescribed unnecessarily.
Why this overuse of antibiotics? With the advent of antibiotic therapy, the treatment of most infectious diseases took on a new specificity. At least something was available that could attack the germs causing the disease. Where a cause could not be isolated, the antibiotic was given empirically, that is, without sound basis, by enthusiastic doctors. And what is more, the patient many times demanded it. As a consequence, there has been much unjustified use of antibiotics.
No doubt another reason for the overuse of antibiotics is the desire of doctors just to do something, tending to consider only the potential benefits of these drugs. Still another reason, suggested by S. M. Wolfe, director of Ralph Nader’s Health Resource Group, is the possibility that for information about drugs doctors depend too much on the biased sales pitches of drug company representatives.
Why Two-edged?
Why do antibiotics help many people but not help all? Why are they so often two-edged swords? One factor is the physical condition of the patient. Powerful antibiotics are likely to have powerful toxic side effects. It is the function of the liver and the kidneys to get rid of toxic agents. But if the liver is diseased or the kidneys function inadequately, they may not get rid of the toxic residues of the antibiotic and, as a result, the cells of the body succumb to the poisons and the patient sickens and may even die.
An even more frequent cause of complications resulting from the use of antibiotics is allergy or some type of intolerance. Any patient may be allergic to one or more antibiotics, as a result of which harm and even death may come to the patient. For example, of more than a thousand reported life-threatening reactions caused by antibiotics, the vast majority involved penicillin, and, of these, 10 percent were fatal.
There is also the problem of microbes developing drug immunity, resisting the bacteriocidal effect of the antibiotic. This has been seen recently in the treatment of gonorrhea. For years the gonococcus germ causing this disease was extremely sensitive to penicillin so that recovery from this disease was almost certain if the antibiotic was administered. Lately, however, penicillin-resistant strains of gonococcus have developed, so that now other, less effective drugs have to be used.
Still another reason why an antibiotic may turn out to be a double-edged sword is that it may wipe out all except certain strains, which then increase and cause completely new or complicating diseases. Such “superinfections” are caused by the microbes not susceptible to the antibiotic but which have been kept in check by the other microbes in a sort of “natural” balance.
Regarding this aspect of matters, The Sunday News, Detroit, Michigan, July 28, 1974, told of doctors warning that overuse of the most widely administered antibiotic has fostered development of a new resistant kind of infant brain inflammation. The antibiotic is ampicillin, a synthetic form of penicillin. According to Dr. S. Ross of the Children’s Hospital in Washington, D.C., “ampicillin has been beaten to death by being used indiscriminately by physicians both inside and outside the hospital.” It “used to be the drug of choice for . . . a serious intestinal disease. In 1967, 5 percent of [such] cases were resistant to it. Now 95 percent are resistant. . . . The growing resistance scares . . . us.”
An example of this is the potential effect of some antibiotics on the intestinal flora, the useful bacterial population of the intestines so essential to the proper and maximum assimilation of food. According to many practitioners, continued use of antibiotics may kill not only harmful bacteria but also much of the intestinal flora. For this reason certain practitioners urge the use of yogurt or like milk products whenever a person is taking antibiotics.
What Can You Do About It?
Some might conclude from the foregoing that all this information is the concern of physicians, not of their patients. But is that so?If so many doctors are not sufficiently cautious, even as their own spokesmen confess, perhaps the “layman” should show concern. That is the position taken by Science Digest, January 1975. It states: “All antimicrobials—as a group—are overused and abused by physicians in general to the point where the public must learn to protect itself by learning the dangers, for clearly doctors as a group are blowing it.”
From the foregoing it is apparent that you should be very careful about using antibiotics. Never urge your doctor to prescribe antibiotics. Never use those prescribed to others; never experiment yourself. Let your doctor know of your past use of antibiotics, whether unfavorable or not; also let him know what other drugs you may be taking. If he prescribes antibiotics, inquire as to an alternate treatment. If they seem imperative, then follow his instructions closely.
To sum up, we cannot do better than to quote from the “Concluding Remarks” in Dr. Zurek’s chapter, “Antibiotic-induced Diseases”: “It is hoped this review of untoward reactions to antimicrobial agents will foster appropriate respect for these drugs. Their use has produced tragedies as well as miracles. None are completely without hazard. . . . Successful antibiotic therapy can be achieved only by knowledge of the capabilities of these agents and a constant awareness of their hazards.”
Is It Safe to Take Medicine?
IF YOU looked in the medicine cabinet of a typical affluent home, what would you see? Often it is so stuffed with remedies that there is hardly room for a toothbrush. It seems to be a human weakness to want to take medicine. In fact, the late noted Canadian physician, Sir William Osler, once mused that “the desire to take medicine is perhaps the greatest feature which distinguishes man from animals.”
In the United States, some $10 billion a year is spent for drugs to relieve various ailments. Doctors write some 2.4 billion prescriptions annually for medicines. And the use of prescription drugs is predicted to keep on increasing at the rate of 9.5 percent a year. Why?
One reason is that ever more effective medicines are being developed to combat many diseases. But largely responsible are the advertising efforts of pharmaceutical manufacturers. Annually they spend some $800,000,000 to push their products. Thus there are more than 100,000 medications on the market, according to an estimate of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The nonprescription drug most widely used is aspirin, with Americans consuming upward of 15,000 tons of it a year!
But does it make good sense to use medicines so freely? Is there danger involved in their use?
Sobering Considerations
That the lives of many persons with serious infectious diseases have been saved by such modern-day drugs as penicillin is well known. But for some persons these medicines are a two-edged sword, since they may also cause harmful side effects, even death. Medical literature has often acknowledged the dangers involved, sometimes in a very impressive way.
This is done in the Life Science Library book Drugs, coauthored by Walter Modell, professor of pharmacology at the Cornell University Medical College in New York city. No doubt in a desire to emphasize the paradoxical nature of medicines, the first chapter of this volume is entitled “Poisons That Save Lives.” There we read in its early paragraphs:
“All drugs are poisons, and all poisons are drugs. It is no accident that the words ‘poison’ and ‘potion’ come from the same root, or that the Greek word pharmakon, which we find rooted in our own words ‘pharmacy’ and ‘pharmacology,’ originally meant both a healing draught and a deadly one.
“In the broadest sense, a drug—or a poison—is any chemical that can effect an alteration in the function or structure of living tissue. . . . As commonly used, of course, the word ‘drugs’ implies medicinal chemicals—those substances that, in carefully regulated doses, produce desirable changes in the human body, counteracting disease or relieving distress.”
It has often been termed “miraculous” how carefully regulated doses of modern drugs have saved patients. There is little question that there are untold thousands of persons alive today who would otherwise die if denied their so-called “wonder drugs.” Yet Professor Modell put matters in balance, explaining:
“Even the most beneficial drugs notoriously possess adverse effects. Some experts estimate that perhaps one American hospital patient in 20 lands in the hospital as a result of reactions to drugs. The best one can say of any drug is that its beneficial effects outweigh its harmful ones—for most patients, most of the time.”
Do the Benefits Outweigh the Harm?
Doctors, by and large, will probably say that the benefits of medicinal drugs do outweigh their harm. They may point to their own individual medical experience—their own observation—where hundreds have been benefited by drugs and only a few adversely affected. But certain medical authorities are beginning to question such a conclusion.
For example, consider the use of antibiotics. In 1943 the first antibiotic, penicillin G, was marketed in the United States. Since then, antibiotics have become the most commonly prescribed class of drugs, with at least 8,000,000,000 doses being certified for use in 1972 by the Food and Drug Administration! In view of such massive use, some doctors are evidently overprescribing and misprescribing antibiotics. Regarding this, the lead article in The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) of March 4, 1974, entitled “This Is Medical Progress?”, concluded:
“We believe it is appropriate to pose two questions, even though it may be impossible to develop the data sufficient to answer them: (1) Have we reached the point where the enormous use of antibiotics is producing as much harm as good? (2) Are the risks beginning to outweigh the benefits?”
These are considered valid questions by certain medical men who have been alarmed by the increasing evidence of harm being done to many patients by antibiotics.
Illustrating the Need for Caution
Doctors have observed, for example, that the overuse of antibiotics has been a factor in the development of resistant strains of bacteria. According to figures cited in the above-mentioned JAMA article, these bacteria have multiplied to the point where it is possible that they may be causing up to 100,000 deaths a year in American hospitals!
The two doctors who presented this evidence in JAMA singled out chloramphenicol as a particularly dangerous antibiotic that may produce aplastic anemia as a serious side effect. They explained: “The problem of aplastic anemia has been well documented; this fatal reaction occurs about once in approximately 60,000 to 80,000 doses.” With nearly four million patients a year reportedly being given chloramphenicol, it is apparently responsible for scores of deaths annually.
Regarding these deaths, the JAMA article laments: “A large majority of these usually fatal reactions occurred in patients who received chloramphenicol for either trivial infections, undocumented infections, or infections for which a safer and as effective alternate antibiotic could have been selected.”
Surely there is need for caution in the use of such drugs as chloramphenicol. Most physicians are well aware of the dangers of these drugs, reserving them for certain life-threatening conditions. Yet evidently some doctors are either uninformed about the dangers, or they use very poor judgment in prescribing them.
But there is probably a more important reason why chloramphenicol is still used so frequently. The former head of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration claimed that its manufacturers “have successfully promoted Chloromycetin [trade name for chloramphenicol] contrary to the best advice of the medical profession.”
Yet unwarranted claims for drugs are common. Thus one government agency found that, of 16,000 over-the-counter drugs it tested, 60 percent violated the law by claiming more for the preparation than it was able to do. The National Academy of Science reviewed 4,349 prescription and nonprescription drugs that were promoted for the treatment of 1,600 different conditions. It found that, of 1,610 claims made for the products, only 19 percent could be substantiated. Another survey showed that, of 1,859 drugs tested, only 301, or less than 17 percent, were effective for all the conditions for which they were promoted.
It is a big job to try to prevent the marketing of medicines that can harm people more than they help them. Thus about fifteen years ago a so-called “perfect sleeping pill” containing the drug thalidomide was widely used in many lands. However, a pharmacologist in the employ of the United States government held up its approval pending clarification of various suspicions she had regarding it. It was a good thing, since shortly thereafter it was discovered that thousands of babies born to women who had taken thalidomide during pregnancy were horribly deformed.
This further illustrates the need for caution in taking medicines. For even though no bad side effects may be experienced immediately—or even for days or weeks—they can be realized months or even years later. “In medicine today, we are using many stronger drugs and all kinds of esoteric chemicals and machines,” observes Dr. Eugene Saenger, professor of radiology at the University of Cincinnati. His conclusion: “There are certain to be some long-term consequences.”
The fact is, some of these long-term consequences have only lately begun to be experienced.
A Calculated Risk
For example, between 1945 and 1971 the drug called diethylstilbestrol (DES) was commonly prescribed for pregnant women to prevent miscarriages. Although some miscarriages were probably prevented, what have been the delayed results? A high incidence of vaginal cancers in the teen-age daughters of the mothers who took this drug has resulted! Thus, a Los Angeles, California, specialist in gynecologic tumors advises: “Daughters of women who were given DES should be examined regularly from their 13th birthday on.”
Similarly, the London Daily Mail of March 7, 1974, reported: “Sales over the counter of one of the most widely used pain-killers are to be banned following evidence that the drug can cause kidney damage. . . . In Britain it is estimated that up to 500 people have died each year from kidney failure directly attributable to excessive dependence on phenacetin compounds.”
Also, a study of drugs that are commonly taken orally to control diabetes indicates that they may cause 10,000 to 15,000 deaths a year due to heart disease. This study, which was reported in the JAMA of February 10, 1975, indicates that the death rate from heart and related diseases was twice as high among diabetics taking these drugs as it was among diabetics treated either by insulin injection or by diet control.
Does this mean that drugs should be avoided altogether? No. They have relieved the suffering of tens of millions, and have saved perhaps millions of lives. How thankful such persons can be for them! The risk involved in taking them is often warranted. There are, no doubt, many thousands of patients with heart disease who would die within weeks if they failed to take digitalis. In fact, even to alter a carefully regulated dose could be hazardous. Yes, digitalis is a “poison,” but when used wisely and under expert supervision, it has proved to be a real lifesaver.
A diabetic, too, is probably more likely to die from his disease if he does not take medicine than he is to die from the heart disease his medicine allegedly may cause. Similarly, one may accept the “risk” of taking even aspirin in preference to the discomfort and inconvenience of a headache. But the point to remember is that taking medicine is a calculated risk—it is a two-edged sword.
How are you to know, then, whether to take a medicine or not? For this you are largely dependent on the advice of a physician. As a protection to you, powerful drugs can be obtained only on a doctor’s advice and prescription. Since his judgment can affect your health, and perhaps whether you live or die, you will do well to respect his judgment. But, for the same reasons, it is wise to ascertain carefully his qualifications. Is he conscientious as well as knowledgeable? Does he really have your welfare at heart? In certain cases you may want also to consult another physician as to whether the use of a certain drug is warranted.
Patients Often to Blame
The fact is, however, that patients themselves are often to blame for the overuse and misuse of drugs. Many of them feel cheated if the doctor does not prescribe some medicine or give them an injection. Dr. Calvin M. Kunin writes in the JAMA: “Patient pressure is one of the most important factors that leads physicians to overprescribe in office practice. This is by no means subtle and often comes from the most articulate and best educated people including health professionals. Visualize the telephone calls to a busy physician requesting and sometimes even demanding that an antibiotic be prescribed.”
Describing the problems, one surgeon and practitioner wrote: “When a man comes in to see me with a low backache that he acquired while cleaning out his basement, I feel like saying, ‘Look, take your money and run.’” What the person needs is some heat and rest, and perhaps aspirin to kill the pain. But since this advice would displease the man, the doctor gives him what he wants. He makes a “big deal” out of it—the patient pays $10 for an office call, $20 for an X ray, $5 for some medicine and $3 for a diathermy treatment. “The man goes home [satisfied but] thirty-eight dollars poorer and physically no better.”
Need to Exercise Common Sense
The foregoing indicates the need of common sense in the use of all types of medicines. It only makes sense, for example, not to use powerful drugs when weaker ones will serve, for the more powerful the drug, the more likely the danger of side effects. Thus, after making a big ado about “wonder drugs” in the treatment of arthritis, it was found that the old standby, aspirin, much of the time served as well, if not even better, than these “wonder drugs.” So do not be disappointed if your physician advises aspirin instead of some expensive prescription drug, which is potentially more dangerous than aspirin.
Common sense when going to the medicine cabinet would also indicate not resorting to drugs for every little discomfort. A case in point is aspirin. As already indicated, it has its uses. But excessive use can cause a variety of disorders, such as bleeding, especially of the stomach. If there is any bleeding situation, such as menstruation, hemorrhoids, or an ulcer, aspirin may only make it worse. Aspirin especially should be avoided by pregnant women, since it is believed that it may damage the developing fetus.
It is noteworthy that habitual users of over-the-counter drugs for killing pain have been found to be more likely to have anemia, ulcers, high blood pressure, depression or anxiety states. Especially singled out for severe criticism by stomach specialists is Alka-Seltzer. Would it be alright to use it occasionally? Yes. Regularly? No.
And since all drugs have potential side effects, common sense would indicate not using or resorting to medicines if other remedies will serve. An instance where this applies is in constipation. For many, a laxative is an occasional necessary evil. But continual use can be harmful so that one is wise to give thought to practical nonmedical measures—the development of good bowel habits, proper diet and regular exercise. According to one well-known physician, these practical measures will serve for 95 percent of the people troubled with constipation and who therefore can treat it “with a minimum of medicine and a maximum of common sense.”
It is clearly evident, then, that there is a real need to exercise caution and to use common sense when it comes to taking medicines. They can be beneficial, even lifesaving; but remember, too, they can possibly cause harm. The certain, lasting remedy for human ills will be realized only when, in God’s righteous new order, Jesus Christ exercises his power to heal all human infirmities.
In the United States, some $10 billion a year is spent for drugs to relieve various ailments. Doctors write some 2.4 billion prescriptions annually for medicines. And the use of prescription drugs is predicted to keep on increasing at the rate of 9.5 percent a year. Why?
One reason is that ever more effective medicines are being developed to combat many diseases. But largely responsible are the advertising efforts of pharmaceutical manufacturers. Annually they spend some $800,000,000 to push their products. Thus there are more than 100,000 medications on the market, according to an estimate of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The nonprescription drug most widely used is aspirin, with Americans consuming upward of 15,000 tons of it a year!
But does it make good sense to use medicines so freely? Is there danger involved in their use?
Sobering Considerations
That the lives of many persons with serious infectious diseases have been saved by such modern-day drugs as penicillin is well known. But for some persons these medicines are a two-edged sword, since they may also cause harmful side effects, even death. Medical literature has often acknowledged the dangers involved, sometimes in a very impressive way.
This is done in the Life Science Library book Drugs, coauthored by Walter Modell, professor of pharmacology at the Cornell University Medical College in New York city. No doubt in a desire to emphasize the paradoxical nature of medicines, the first chapter of this volume is entitled “Poisons That Save Lives.” There we read in its early paragraphs:
“All drugs are poisons, and all poisons are drugs. It is no accident that the words ‘poison’ and ‘potion’ come from the same root, or that the Greek word pharmakon, which we find rooted in our own words ‘pharmacy’ and ‘pharmacology,’ originally meant both a healing draught and a deadly one.
“In the broadest sense, a drug—or a poison—is any chemical that can effect an alteration in the function or structure of living tissue. . . . As commonly used, of course, the word ‘drugs’ implies medicinal chemicals—those substances that, in carefully regulated doses, produce desirable changes in the human body, counteracting disease or relieving distress.”
It has often been termed “miraculous” how carefully regulated doses of modern drugs have saved patients. There is little question that there are untold thousands of persons alive today who would otherwise die if denied their so-called “wonder drugs.” Yet Professor Modell put matters in balance, explaining:
“Even the most beneficial drugs notoriously possess adverse effects. Some experts estimate that perhaps one American hospital patient in 20 lands in the hospital as a result of reactions to drugs. The best one can say of any drug is that its beneficial effects outweigh its harmful ones—for most patients, most of the time.”
Do the Benefits Outweigh the Harm?
Doctors, by and large, will probably say that the benefits of medicinal drugs do outweigh their harm. They may point to their own individual medical experience—their own observation—where hundreds have been benefited by drugs and only a few adversely affected. But certain medical authorities are beginning to question such a conclusion.
For example, consider the use of antibiotics. In 1943 the first antibiotic, penicillin G, was marketed in the United States. Since then, antibiotics have become the most commonly prescribed class of drugs, with at least 8,000,000,000 doses being certified for use in 1972 by the Food and Drug Administration! In view of such massive use, some doctors are evidently overprescribing and misprescribing antibiotics. Regarding this, the lead article in The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) of March 4, 1974, entitled “This Is Medical Progress?”, concluded:
“We believe it is appropriate to pose two questions, even though it may be impossible to develop the data sufficient to answer them: (1) Have we reached the point where the enormous use of antibiotics is producing as much harm as good? (2) Are the risks beginning to outweigh the benefits?”
These are considered valid questions by certain medical men who have been alarmed by the increasing evidence of harm being done to many patients by antibiotics.
Illustrating the Need for Caution
Doctors have observed, for example, that the overuse of antibiotics has been a factor in the development of resistant strains of bacteria. According to figures cited in the above-mentioned JAMA article, these bacteria have multiplied to the point where it is possible that they may be causing up to 100,000 deaths a year in American hospitals!
The two doctors who presented this evidence in JAMA singled out chloramphenicol as a particularly dangerous antibiotic that may produce aplastic anemia as a serious side effect. They explained: “The problem of aplastic anemia has been well documented; this fatal reaction occurs about once in approximately 60,000 to 80,000 doses.” With nearly four million patients a year reportedly being given chloramphenicol, it is apparently responsible for scores of deaths annually.
Regarding these deaths, the JAMA article laments: “A large majority of these usually fatal reactions occurred in patients who received chloramphenicol for either trivial infections, undocumented infections, or infections for which a safer and as effective alternate antibiotic could have been selected.”
Surely there is need for caution in the use of such drugs as chloramphenicol. Most physicians are well aware of the dangers of these drugs, reserving them for certain life-threatening conditions. Yet evidently some doctors are either uninformed about the dangers, or they use very poor judgment in prescribing them.
But there is probably a more important reason why chloramphenicol is still used so frequently. The former head of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration claimed that its manufacturers “have successfully promoted Chloromycetin [trade name for chloramphenicol] contrary to the best advice of the medical profession.”
Yet unwarranted claims for drugs are common. Thus one government agency found that, of 16,000 over-the-counter drugs it tested, 60 percent violated the law by claiming more for the preparation than it was able to do. The National Academy of Science reviewed 4,349 prescription and nonprescription drugs that were promoted for the treatment of 1,600 different conditions. It found that, of 1,610 claims made for the products, only 19 percent could be substantiated. Another survey showed that, of 1,859 drugs tested, only 301, or less than 17 percent, were effective for all the conditions for which they were promoted.
It is a big job to try to prevent the marketing of medicines that can harm people more than they help them. Thus about fifteen years ago a so-called “perfect sleeping pill” containing the drug thalidomide was widely used in many lands. However, a pharmacologist in the employ of the United States government held up its approval pending clarification of various suspicions she had regarding it. It was a good thing, since shortly thereafter it was discovered that thousands of babies born to women who had taken thalidomide during pregnancy were horribly deformed.
This further illustrates the need for caution in taking medicines. For even though no bad side effects may be experienced immediately—or even for days or weeks—they can be realized months or even years later. “In medicine today, we are using many stronger drugs and all kinds of esoteric chemicals and machines,” observes Dr. Eugene Saenger, professor of radiology at the University of Cincinnati. His conclusion: “There are certain to be some long-term consequences.”
The fact is, some of these long-term consequences have only lately begun to be experienced.
A Calculated Risk
For example, between 1945 and 1971 the drug called diethylstilbestrol (DES) was commonly prescribed for pregnant women to prevent miscarriages. Although some miscarriages were probably prevented, what have been the delayed results? A high incidence of vaginal cancers in the teen-age daughters of the mothers who took this drug has resulted! Thus, a Los Angeles, California, specialist in gynecologic tumors advises: “Daughters of women who were given DES should be examined regularly from their 13th birthday on.”
Similarly, the London Daily Mail of March 7, 1974, reported: “Sales over the counter of one of the most widely used pain-killers are to be banned following evidence that the drug can cause kidney damage. . . . In Britain it is estimated that up to 500 people have died each year from kidney failure directly attributable to excessive dependence on phenacetin compounds.”
Also, a study of drugs that are commonly taken orally to control diabetes indicates that they may cause 10,000 to 15,000 deaths a year due to heart disease. This study, which was reported in the JAMA of February 10, 1975, indicates that the death rate from heart and related diseases was twice as high among diabetics taking these drugs as it was among diabetics treated either by insulin injection or by diet control.
Does this mean that drugs should be avoided altogether? No. They have relieved the suffering of tens of millions, and have saved perhaps millions of lives. How thankful such persons can be for them! The risk involved in taking them is often warranted. There are, no doubt, many thousands of patients with heart disease who would die within weeks if they failed to take digitalis. In fact, even to alter a carefully regulated dose could be hazardous. Yes, digitalis is a “poison,” but when used wisely and under expert supervision, it has proved to be a real lifesaver.
A diabetic, too, is probably more likely to die from his disease if he does not take medicine than he is to die from the heart disease his medicine allegedly may cause. Similarly, one may accept the “risk” of taking even aspirin in preference to the discomfort and inconvenience of a headache. But the point to remember is that taking medicine is a calculated risk—it is a two-edged sword.
How are you to know, then, whether to take a medicine or not? For this you are largely dependent on the advice of a physician. As a protection to you, powerful drugs can be obtained only on a doctor’s advice and prescription. Since his judgment can affect your health, and perhaps whether you live or die, you will do well to respect his judgment. But, for the same reasons, it is wise to ascertain carefully his qualifications. Is he conscientious as well as knowledgeable? Does he really have your welfare at heart? In certain cases you may want also to consult another physician as to whether the use of a certain drug is warranted.
Patients Often to Blame
The fact is, however, that patients themselves are often to blame for the overuse and misuse of drugs. Many of them feel cheated if the doctor does not prescribe some medicine or give them an injection. Dr. Calvin M. Kunin writes in the JAMA: “Patient pressure is one of the most important factors that leads physicians to overprescribe in office practice. This is by no means subtle and often comes from the most articulate and best educated people including health professionals. Visualize the telephone calls to a busy physician requesting and sometimes even demanding that an antibiotic be prescribed.”
Describing the problems, one surgeon and practitioner wrote: “When a man comes in to see me with a low backache that he acquired while cleaning out his basement, I feel like saying, ‘Look, take your money and run.’” What the person needs is some heat and rest, and perhaps aspirin to kill the pain. But since this advice would displease the man, the doctor gives him what he wants. He makes a “big deal” out of it—the patient pays $10 for an office call, $20 for an X ray, $5 for some medicine and $3 for a diathermy treatment. “The man goes home [satisfied but] thirty-eight dollars poorer and physically no better.”
Need to Exercise Common Sense
The foregoing indicates the need of common sense in the use of all types of medicines. It only makes sense, for example, not to use powerful drugs when weaker ones will serve, for the more powerful the drug, the more likely the danger of side effects. Thus, after making a big ado about “wonder drugs” in the treatment of arthritis, it was found that the old standby, aspirin, much of the time served as well, if not even better, than these “wonder drugs.” So do not be disappointed if your physician advises aspirin instead of some expensive prescription drug, which is potentially more dangerous than aspirin.
Common sense when going to the medicine cabinet would also indicate not resorting to drugs for every little discomfort. A case in point is aspirin. As already indicated, it has its uses. But excessive use can cause a variety of disorders, such as bleeding, especially of the stomach. If there is any bleeding situation, such as menstruation, hemorrhoids, or an ulcer, aspirin may only make it worse. Aspirin especially should be avoided by pregnant women, since it is believed that it may damage the developing fetus.
It is noteworthy that habitual users of over-the-counter drugs for killing pain have been found to be more likely to have anemia, ulcers, high blood pressure, depression or anxiety states. Especially singled out for severe criticism by stomach specialists is Alka-Seltzer. Would it be alright to use it occasionally? Yes. Regularly? No.
And since all drugs have potential side effects, common sense would indicate not using or resorting to medicines if other remedies will serve. An instance where this applies is in constipation. For many, a laxative is an occasional necessary evil. But continual use can be harmful so that one is wise to give thought to practical nonmedical measures—the development of good bowel habits, proper diet and regular exercise. According to one well-known physician, these practical measures will serve for 95 percent of the people troubled with constipation and who therefore can treat it “with a minimum of medicine and a maximum of common sense.”
It is clearly evident, then, that there is a real need to exercise caution and to use common sense when it comes to taking medicines. They can be beneficial, even lifesaving; but remember, too, they can possibly cause harm. The certain, lasting remedy for human ills will be realized only when, in God’s righteous new order, Jesus Christ exercises his power to heal all human infirmities.
Why Big Cities Are Breaking Down
BACK in 1913, the English sociologist Patrick Geddes theorized that big cities go through five stages:
1. Polis—early city
2. Metropolis—large but healthy city
3. Megalopolis—unhealthy, oversized city with grand illusions
4. Parasitopolis—parasitic city that drains its nation
5. Pathopolis—diseased, shrinking, dying city
Many see cities like New York as having symptoms of the fourth stage, as having already begun to leech strength from the nation. Others fear that aspects of the final stage are also evident. A cancerlike municipal disease—creeping urban decay—is even now shrinking the hearts out of many American cities, as middle- and upper-income families flee to the suburbs.
The populations within the taxable bounds of some American big cities are actually shrinking to “their lowest size in this century,” according to recent census information. “The populations of Boston, Pittsburgh and Jersey City haven’t been so low since 1900. . . . New York’s population is down almost to the level of 1940.”—U.S. News & World Report, September 1, 1975, p. 64.
Driven by a growing distaste for big-city existence, taxpaying citizens, business and industry are fleeing out of the big “central city” areas to noncontributing suburbs and beyond. A sore point in San Francisco’s police strike, for example, was that more than half of those demanding higher pay lived outside the bounds of its taxpaying community. And even though New York’s taxable population has fallen to well under eight million, some estimate that as many as another ten million people living outside the city in some way derive economic benefit from it.
A Vicious Cycle
Hence, a self-perpetuating “vicious cycle” of lost taxpayers, higher taxes, more lost taxpayers, and so on, has developed. When the more prosperous families and industries move out, taking taxes and jobs with them, the poor, unemployed, aged and minorities least able to pay taxes remain. Said Milwaukee’s Mayor Maier: “We, along with other cities, are part of a deepening trend . . . toward an ever-growing concentration of the poor and the relatively poor in the central cities of America.”
Meanwhile, regular city services, as well as programs for the mounting numbers of poor and unemployed, continue to skyrocket in cost. As New York city’s spending for all purposes tripled during the past ten years, welfare costs grew at almost twice that pace!
To compensate, cities raise taxes on remaining property owners, business and industry—an encouragement for them, too, to leave. San Francisco has been forced to more than quadruple average property taxes since 1950—a pace double that of the rise in the cost of living.
But such high taxation makes owning housing a losing proposition for some, and this, in turn, hastens urban decay. New York apartment owners will reportedly abandon an estimated 50,000 dwelling units in 1976, after having abandoned about 35,000 units annually in recent years! Not only are taxes on these properties lost to the city, but gone also are the former residents of block after block of rubble-covered land and condemned buildings—thus feeding the “vicious cycle.”
When highly taxed business and industry choose to leave as well, tax revenue is not the only thing taken. Since 1969, for example, it is reported that New York city steadily lost half a million manufacturing jobs—and taxpaying workers—due to business moves. But the alternative to higher taxes, say city officials, is cutbacks in city services. Such cutbacks make the big cities even less desirable—driving more “middle class” and industrial taxpayers away.
Thus urban problems tend to concentrate in big cities and get driven out of proportion to what higher populations alone account for. But there are other pressures that also enter this “vicious cycle’’ of big-city economic problems. Among them are . . .
. . . Minorities
Big cities tend to stack up minorities and economically deprived persons all together in older, decaying housing and “low-rent projects,” or, in some countries, shantytowns of their own making. The effects of concentrating minorities in this fashion are well known. A report from Sweden, for example, notes that the area surrounding her big-city “urban renewal” projects are “traditionally a decaying slum-zone, where the socially and economically handicapped and newly arrived immigrants are allotted to live. These areas become haunts of alcoholic and narcotics addicts”—as well as a drain on city resources.
The growth of black and other ethnic communities in American cities has created intractable housing problems. Deep-rooted prejudices and fears sped the exodus of whites to the suburbs, creating another big-city problem: de facto segregation. Well-intentioned efforts to give blacks equal educational opportunities by “busing” pupils between the two communities have met with only limited success, while driving many whites even farther into the suburbs and beyond.
. . . Crime
Bad housing and cramped populations tend to breed far more crime, on the average, in big cities than normally affects outlying areas. West Germany, for example, reports an average of nearly twice as many persons affected by crime in densely populated areas as in the country as a whole. Yet almost three times as many police, on the average, are assigned to protect those same city people! Can you see why many prefer to “escape” from the big cities?
Overburdened big-city courts have actually spurred the “vicious cycle” of metropolitan crime problems. The concentration of crime produces so many cases that the process of “plea bargaining” has come to be viewed as an absolute necessity in many U.S. cities. Criminals are allowed to plead guilty to lesser offenses than first charged so that massive numbers of time-consuming trials can be avoided. As a result, criminals—even murderers—are often back on city streets in short order.
. . . Militant Public Employees
As crime mounts and cities decay, more police and firemen are needed, as are more employees to take care of swelling welfare and other programs. Before recent cuts, for example, the number of New York city employees had grown from about 200,000 to over 300,000 in fifteen years—yet the city’s population had hardly changed!
Public-safety employees such as police and firemen, and even garbage men, in order to compensate for the increased dangers they face, as well as to offset the rise in the cost of living, have used the absolute necessity of their services as a powerful bargaining tool to gain higher wages and benefits. The mere threat of chaos without their services has usually driven their wages up far faster than those of most other workers. For example, while living costs rose to about two and a quarter times their 1950 level in twenty-five years, wages and benefits of San Francisco police and firemen multiplied to about seven times their 1950 level! Many other cities have been just as liberal—but someone has to pay the bill.
. . . Pollution
Those who flee to the suburbs to escape pollution and other city problems have actually added to the problem. Traffic moving into the big cities for work is becoming “heavier and heavier, moving slower and slower,” notes a recent report from Sweden that is typical of many cities. Mass-transportation schemes have accomplished little to check pollution. “The persistent traffic tie-ups shatter a dream of urban planners—that rapid transit would ‘get people out of their cars and off the freeway.’”—New York Times Magazine, October 19, 1975, p. 84.
A National Academy of Sciences report notes that even though U.S. federal standards have brought some improvement, country air still remains ‘far superior to most city air.’ The concentration of industry adds much to big-city pollution. But cities need industries for jobs and revenue. To survive, many recession-plagued businesses are seeking a slowdown of costly-to-meet air-quality standards, thus keeping pollution in the “vicious cycle’’ of city decay.
. . . Dehumanizing People
Squeezing humanity together in great masses seems to accentuate the worst in many people. Rather than close quarters bringing them together in warm personal relationships, just the opposite is too often the case. A report from London tells of “sick and elderly people dying alone in their apartments and not being found for weeks afterward, because no one ever visited them.” The report adds: “This would have been absolutely impossible twenty years ago.” Other big-city dwellers know that London is not unique in this matter.
Cooped up in cramped apartments and narrow city streets, children, too, suffer. They lose much of the joy of openness, discovery and interacting with nature found in more rural environments. Destroying, crushing and breaking things are often the way they satisfy the need for excitement and experience. The consequent vandalism and graffiti bring further deterioration to the cities, and more seeds of crime are planted.
Thus many of the world’s big cities are caught up in a vicious cycle of degenerating forces that seem to feed upon themselves, ever worsening. But are not the big-city governments working to improve matters?
City Government
“No American big city is well-governed today,” asserts Milton Rakove, professor of political science at the University of Illinois, “and it is unlikely that any big city could be, given the kinds of problems confronting our cities, the demands being made on their political and governmental systems, and the inability of those systems to cope with those demands.”—New York Times, October 23, 1975, p. 39.
Lack of permanent, stable leadership hampers many big-city governments. Says Business Week of one floundering city: “It is directed by elected officials who, because of the nature of politics, often have a ‘here today, gone tomorrow’ philosophy of management.”
Such transient leadership may even have a corrosive effect on the habits of municipal employees, whose productivity is said to be below that of other workers. Extra workers have to be paid to get the same job done, further draining city finances. Why? An official of one of the largest municipal-employee unions in the U.S. put it this way: “When the municipal worker discovers the city isn’t interested in how he does his job, he loses interest too. . . . We want to feel we’re disciplined. Discipline means somebody cares. What we need is leadership.”
Rather than truly caring, the tendency of many politically motivated officials is to “throw money” at city problems in the hope that they will go away. Failing to get to the heart of the problems, their superficial, money-oriented programs often swell to huge proportions and suck the lifeblood from cities. The disastrous consequences of such policies are now being felt in a number of the world’s big cities.
Even so, most national governments stand ready to “bail out” cities in trouble, thus transferring the strain to the entire nation. So it would be an exaggeration to say that all big cities are facing imminent economic collapse. Some may even appear to be coping with matters. But time is not on their side.
The plight of many big cities today might well be described by this report on the condition of those in Britain:
“Their fabric is tattered and torn. Their services generally are diminishing in scope and effectiveness at a time when more is being demanded of them. It is unlikely that the national government will refuse to ‘bail out’ cities which become as bankrupt as New York. So it seems likely that the cities will struggle on, with ever less effective services at an ever greater cost. Standards of living will continue to fall as will life values in the cities. Life in the cities, like the traffic, will likely grind on slower and slower.”
Does that mean that the pathopolis of Patrick Geddes’ theory—the diseased, shrinking, dying city—is the only course that lies down the road for today’s metropolises? Is there no solution for the big cities?
1. Polis—early city
2. Metropolis—large but healthy city
3. Megalopolis—unhealthy, oversized city with grand illusions
4. Parasitopolis—parasitic city that drains its nation
5. Pathopolis—diseased, shrinking, dying city
Many see cities like New York as having symptoms of the fourth stage, as having already begun to leech strength from the nation. Others fear that aspects of the final stage are also evident. A cancerlike municipal disease—creeping urban decay—is even now shrinking the hearts out of many American cities, as middle- and upper-income families flee to the suburbs.
The populations within the taxable bounds of some American big cities are actually shrinking to “their lowest size in this century,” according to recent census information. “The populations of Boston, Pittsburgh and Jersey City haven’t been so low since 1900. . . . New York’s population is down almost to the level of 1940.”—U.S. News & World Report, September 1, 1975, p. 64.
Driven by a growing distaste for big-city existence, taxpaying citizens, business and industry are fleeing out of the big “central city” areas to noncontributing suburbs and beyond. A sore point in San Francisco’s police strike, for example, was that more than half of those demanding higher pay lived outside the bounds of its taxpaying community. And even though New York’s taxable population has fallen to well under eight million, some estimate that as many as another ten million people living outside the city in some way derive economic benefit from it.
A Vicious Cycle
Hence, a self-perpetuating “vicious cycle” of lost taxpayers, higher taxes, more lost taxpayers, and so on, has developed. When the more prosperous families and industries move out, taking taxes and jobs with them, the poor, unemployed, aged and minorities least able to pay taxes remain. Said Milwaukee’s Mayor Maier: “We, along with other cities, are part of a deepening trend . . . toward an ever-growing concentration of the poor and the relatively poor in the central cities of America.”
Meanwhile, regular city services, as well as programs for the mounting numbers of poor and unemployed, continue to skyrocket in cost. As New York city’s spending for all purposes tripled during the past ten years, welfare costs grew at almost twice that pace!
To compensate, cities raise taxes on remaining property owners, business and industry—an encouragement for them, too, to leave. San Francisco has been forced to more than quadruple average property taxes since 1950—a pace double that of the rise in the cost of living.
But such high taxation makes owning housing a losing proposition for some, and this, in turn, hastens urban decay. New York apartment owners will reportedly abandon an estimated 50,000 dwelling units in 1976, after having abandoned about 35,000 units annually in recent years! Not only are taxes on these properties lost to the city, but gone also are the former residents of block after block of rubble-covered land and condemned buildings—thus feeding the “vicious cycle.”
When highly taxed business and industry choose to leave as well, tax revenue is not the only thing taken. Since 1969, for example, it is reported that New York city steadily lost half a million manufacturing jobs—and taxpaying workers—due to business moves. But the alternative to higher taxes, say city officials, is cutbacks in city services. Such cutbacks make the big cities even less desirable—driving more “middle class” and industrial taxpayers away.
Thus urban problems tend to concentrate in big cities and get driven out of proportion to what higher populations alone account for. But there are other pressures that also enter this “vicious cycle’’ of big-city economic problems. Among them are . . .
. . . Minorities
Big cities tend to stack up minorities and economically deprived persons all together in older, decaying housing and “low-rent projects,” or, in some countries, shantytowns of their own making. The effects of concentrating minorities in this fashion are well known. A report from Sweden, for example, notes that the area surrounding her big-city “urban renewal” projects are “traditionally a decaying slum-zone, where the socially and economically handicapped and newly arrived immigrants are allotted to live. These areas become haunts of alcoholic and narcotics addicts”—as well as a drain on city resources.
The growth of black and other ethnic communities in American cities has created intractable housing problems. Deep-rooted prejudices and fears sped the exodus of whites to the suburbs, creating another big-city problem: de facto segregation. Well-intentioned efforts to give blacks equal educational opportunities by “busing” pupils between the two communities have met with only limited success, while driving many whites even farther into the suburbs and beyond.
. . . Crime
Bad housing and cramped populations tend to breed far more crime, on the average, in big cities than normally affects outlying areas. West Germany, for example, reports an average of nearly twice as many persons affected by crime in densely populated areas as in the country as a whole. Yet almost three times as many police, on the average, are assigned to protect those same city people! Can you see why many prefer to “escape” from the big cities?
Overburdened big-city courts have actually spurred the “vicious cycle” of metropolitan crime problems. The concentration of crime produces so many cases that the process of “plea bargaining” has come to be viewed as an absolute necessity in many U.S. cities. Criminals are allowed to plead guilty to lesser offenses than first charged so that massive numbers of time-consuming trials can be avoided. As a result, criminals—even murderers—are often back on city streets in short order.
. . . Militant Public Employees
As crime mounts and cities decay, more police and firemen are needed, as are more employees to take care of swelling welfare and other programs. Before recent cuts, for example, the number of New York city employees had grown from about 200,000 to over 300,000 in fifteen years—yet the city’s population had hardly changed!
Public-safety employees such as police and firemen, and even garbage men, in order to compensate for the increased dangers they face, as well as to offset the rise in the cost of living, have used the absolute necessity of their services as a powerful bargaining tool to gain higher wages and benefits. The mere threat of chaos without their services has usually driven their wages up far faster than those of most other workers. For example, while living costs rose to about two and a quarter times their 1950 level in twenty-five years, wages and benefits of San Francisco police and firemen multiplied to about seven times their 1950 level! Many other cities have been just as liberal—but someone has to pay the bill.
. . . Pollution
Those who flee to the suburbs to escape pollution and other city problems have actually added to the problem. Traffic moving into the big cities for work is becoming “heavier and heavier, moving slower and slower,” notes a recent report from Sweden that is typical of many cities. Mass-transportation schemes have accomplished little to check pollution. “The persistent traffic tie-ups shatter a dream of urban planners—that rapid transit would ‘get people out of their cars and off the freeway.’”—New York Times Magazine, October 19, 1975, p. 84.
A National Academy of Sciences report notes that even though U.S. federal standards have brought some improvement, country air still remains ‘far superior to most city air.’ The concentration of industry adds much to big-city pollution. But cities need industries for jobs and revenue. To survive, many recession-plagued businesses are seeking a slowdown of costly-to-meet air-quality standards, thus keeping pollution in the “vicious cycle’’ of city decay.
. . . Dehumanizing People
Squeezing humanity together in great masses seems to accentuate the worst in many people. Rather than close quarters bringing them together in warm personal relationships, just the opposite is too often the case. A report from London tells of “sick and elderly people dying alone in their apartments and not being found for weeks afterward, because no one ever visited them.” The report adds: “This would have been absolutely impossible twenty years ago.” Other big-city dwellers know that London is not unique in this matter.
Cooped up in cramped apartments and narrow city streets, children, too, suffer. They lose much of the joy of openness, discovery and interacting with nature found in more rural environments. Destroying, crushing and breaking things are often the way they satisfy the need for excitement and experience. The consequent vandalism and graffiti bring further deterioration to the cities, and more seeds of crime are planted.
Thus many of the world’s big cities are caught up in a vicious cycle of degenerating forces that seem to feed upon themselves, ever worsening. But are not the big-city governments working to improve matters?
City Government
“No American big city is well-governed today,” asserts Milton Rakove, professor of political science at the University of Illinois, “and it is unlikely that any big city could be, given the kinds of problems confronting our cities, the demands being made on their political and governmental systems, and the inability of those systems to cope with those demands.”—New York Times, October 23, 1975, p. 39.
Lack of permanent, stable leadership hampers many big-city governments. Says Business Week of one floundering city: “It is directed by elected officials who, because of the nature of politics, often have a ‘here today, gone tomorrow’ philosophy of management.”
Such transient leadership may even have a corrosive effect on the habits of municipal employees, whose productivity is said to be below that of other workers. Extra workers have to be paid to get the same job done, further draining city finances. Why? An official of one of the largest municipal-employee unions in the U.S. put it this way: “When the municipal worker discovers the city isn’t interested in how he does his job, he loses interest too. . . . We want to feel we’re disciplined. Discipline means somebody cares. What we need is leadership.”
Rather than truly caring, the tendency of many politically motivated officials is to “throw money” at city problems in the hope that they will go away. Failing to get to the heart of the problems, their superficial, money-oriented programs often swell to huge proportions and suck the lifeblood from cities. The disastrous consequences of such policies are now being felt in a number of the world’s big cities.
Even so, most national governments stand ready to “bail out” cities in trouble, thus transferring the strain to the entire nation. So it would be an exaggeration to say that all big cities are facing imminent economic collapse. Some may even appear to be coping with matters. But time is not on their side.
The plight of many big cities today might well be described by this report on the condition of those in Britain:
“Their fabric is tattered and torn. Their services generally are diminishing in scope and effectiveness at a time when more is being demanded of them. It is unlikely that the national government will refuse to ‘bail out’ cities which become as bankrupt as New York. So it seems likely that the cities will struggle on, with ever less effective services at an ever greater cost. Standards of living will continue to fall as will life values in the cities. Life in the cities, like the traffic, will likely grind on slower and slower.”
Does that mean that the pathopolis of Patrick Geddes’ theory—the diseased, shrinking, dying city—is the only course that lies down the road for today’s metropolises? Is there no solution for the big cities?
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