Cure Me

Medicine.

We all know modern medicine describes a zillion and one diseases, and the numbers grow steadily daily - no doubt much to the glee of the sinfully profitable pharmaceutical corps. Hence the ever-expanding girth of our academic textbooks. No doubt if you read a medical journal way back in the early 1900s, it would only be several pages long ( with dozens of unnameable illnesses marked unknown, unseen and untreatable with question marks abounding ) in comparison to the encyclopaedic medical tomes we lug around in supermarket trolleys these days.

Seems like they find some new communicable disease every other day these days.

You'd be surprised to note that the younger the child is, the more the problems. Hence the dozens of tongue-twisting stuff in paediatrics from peculiar genetic diseases such as Tay-Sachs Disease to Chokenflok Syndrome. You can imagine the various new titles overworked physicians attribute to them in jest. Day-Sex Disease? The Choke-and-Flog Syndrome anyone?


Of course, be comforted that new revolutionary treatments are also being researched every day...
Usually such diseases are named after the scientists ( who in all probability researched the little known disease ) themselves. But seriously, why would you name a horribly debilitating affliction after yourself?! Or having a monstrous mutating virus carrying your name? Imagine these headlines hitting the front pages of your local daily.

Millions - including orphans and geriatrics - wiped out in struggling third world nation after Plague Paul strikes.

Please. Talk about having your name go down in infamy. I certainly wouldn't want to be likened to a violent ethnic cleansing in a third world country. Nor do I want to sound like a devastating pandemic sent by that Big Fella up there.

Honestly I'd prefer to have a vaccine christened on my behalf. A new drug maybe. Maybe something hopeful and curative like the super-cure-all antibiotic - though we all know it's some kinda medical myth like the Holy Grail.

Sick toddler : I am well!
Mother : OMG. My child! You're saved!
Paul : Yes, his temperatures are normalizing, his blood pressure is within hormal limits. Congratulations. I expect a full recovery.
Mother : OMG. Hallelujah. Praise the gods! Praise Paul!
Paul : Oh thanks, it was nothing. All in a day's work.
Mother : NO! I meant the Paul Vaccine.

Bloody hell. So you know what I mean.