History and oblivion (Le Roy and the next age of mankind)

This is a 100% self-contained article, and it also serves as part 1 of a 3-part series. Part 2. Part 3.

Let's get situated in Le Roy

For example, doctors may perceive from the circumstances, such as the patient's age, healthy complexion, and the reaction of his eyes, that his disease does not result from any defect of the blood or the stomach, or any other infirmity; and they therefore judge that it is not due to any natural defect, but to some extrinsic cause. And since that extrinsic cause cannot be any poisonous infection, which would be accompanied by ill humors in the blood and stomach, they have sufficient reason to judge that it is due to witchcraft.

This was written in 1486 in Europe.¹

As far as I am concerned, the only things that would seem really out of place in official discussion of Le Roy, New York, USA are "humors" and the last word, and those are merely details that got updated in the half-millennium since.²

A questioning frame of mind

As I wrote in Our Truman Show, it is not easy to ask why medical curricula include some diseases but not others. This is a short followup.

It will be more or less obvious, but it fits with future, more detailed posts.

Our Truman Show

The thing I like about The Truman Show is what Truman accomplishes. Here it is for clarity:

All of the people in Truman's world
did everything in their power
to prevent him knowing something
and he found it out
by thinking and exploring.