The Abominable No-Men: A Cautionary Tale

THE ABOMINABLE NO-MEN: A CAUTIONARY TALE JAMES S. McCORMICK* For years things had been getting better and better. Children were no longer dying of diarrhoea and measles, except poor black children. Mothers were surviving childbirth to rear their 1.2 infants, although fewer and fewer of them had partners to help them. Even infants, especially rich girl infants, could look forward to living until they were 80 or more, although being 80 or more was not always fun. BUT, no one was living for ever. The dreaded heart disease and the fearful cancer still stalked the land. So the rulers said and the people said, especially the rich people who had time to worry about dying: "Something must be done, this will not do, send for the doctors." The doctors came, and many of them were glad to come, because this meant that the rulers and the people had recognised how important they were. The doctors said, "Give us money for research and we will stop your dying." They got lots of money, whatever could be spared from making bigger and better guns to kill other people, and lots of machines, but the answers they produced were disappointing. They said: "We still are not good at curing your cancers and not much better at curing your heart attacks but we now know what causes them." They said: "It is your own fault. You smoke, you eat too much and the wrong things, you drink, you fornicate, you are lazy and do not walk or run, you take drugs. However, in the meantime, if you give us more money we will be able to give you new livers and new hearts and we will attack your cancers with powerful machines and strong poisons." But still no one lived forever. So the people were sad, and those who were not worried about money for the next meal or buying clothes for their children agreed that smoking was sinful and bought expensive suits and shoes and spent many hours running, not very fast, around the parks and along the roads. The ?Department of Community Health, University of Dublin, 199 Pearse Street, Dublin 2, Ireland.© 1990 by The University of Chicago. AU rights reserved. 003 1 -5982/90/3302-0675$0 1 .00 Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 33, 2 ¦ Winter 1990 | 187 fat ones felt particularly sad and they spent a lot of money on books telling them how to get thin and recommending strange foods that would make them into sylphs. Neither the books nor the diets seemed to work very well. The hamburger chains flourished, and the people still felt sad. While many of the doctors were busy making new hearts and new arteries and fighting cancers, many others said: "Come to me, we will test you and tell you how you may be saved." AU this meant that there were more and more doctors who made more and more money, but sometimes did not have the time or the energy to spend it, or time to make love to their wives. And still the people died. At the same time, there were in the land some abominable no-men. There were very few of them, they were scattered and ill organised, and although most of them were doctors, they were unimportant doctors. They were not busy making new hearts etc., etc., but sat and pondered. They said to the other doctors: "Hang about a bit, maybe it is not as simple as all that: maybe no one lives forever; maybe we are born to die." But nobody much listened. If the other doctors did listen, they did not hear but said that these abominable no-men were nihilists and enemies of the public good. They were dangerous and should not be allowed to teach students. The men who made cigarettes and whiskey thought that the abominable no-men were good news and tried to get them to be on their side, which was more of a problem for the abominable no-men than for the cigarette and whiskey barons. At the same time the people became angry with the doctors because they were still dying and not all their...