doctors

Whatever a doctor might have been for earlier centuries—butcher, specialist in Latin verb declension, barber—he is now a bureaucrat. His only freely marketable skill, mnemonic prowess, has long since been superceded by computers. His function is symbolic.

With nothing to contribute, and a great deal of time on his hands, the modern doctor and his handlers have lobbied successfully for the position of gatekeeper for various corporate entities, particularly vendors of diagnostic machinery and the pharmaceutical industry. Antibiotics and the polio vaccine possibly marked some sort of peak in allopathic medicine, and public health has been in decline since the mid-twentieth century, probably from environmental factors caused, ironically, by the bloat of corporate excrescence.

If there was ever a time when veneration of doctors might have been justified, and this seems unlikely, that time passed nearly three generations ago. The American war on cancer, successful as every American war in my lifetime, provides a good living to a significant sector of the population. Cancer is stronger than ever. My friend here in England recently hurt her leg. Anyone could see that she needed an MRI. The doctor refused. Anyone, in other words, could see better than a doctor. Yet blindness does nothing to detract from the reputation of the doctor. In fact, a blind doctor denying access to (of all things) an imaging machine, is a sign that, in the new world order, everything is working just fine.

Looks like we're on our own.