As in times of old, the people went to the doctors for their ills. Yet, as time would have it, in keeping step with modern life, the face of the doctor has changed much. You see, it used to be there was a woman sitting out beneath the oaken sheath. She’d sit there all day in yonder field, sewing, milking her one goat fair, making cheese, or spinning an old yarn for the children who came by after school. It’was like this in the olden days. Whereas now, the old man you go to see in a sterile room doesn’t know your family, doesn’t have a goat or sheep and himself is harboring a cold from spending all his time indoors and is sick from false air.
‘Tis no surprise that it’s ended up in this way, my kin, but it is a shame if you ask me. With the new modern white-coat, who beat out the old hag long ago, many of the finest things about country medicine have been lost in those times, too. Many aides are lost in this sterility. Before, the midwife would come tromping over on a horse, she’d sit with ya while you were ill and she’d bring her knapsack of herbs picked from her very own garden. But now, we again have ‘em in white lab coats making medicines in glass beakers. ‘Tis nothing wrong with this, in fact, it’s an advancement in many ways. Yet, what’s fallen out in the middle of this great divide has a lot to do with bedside manner and accessibility.
You see, along with that there midwife having the keys to yer healing in her own garden, she’d share somma those seeds with you, too. And that very plant which did grow in your very garden then, was the same plant that healed ya last year. She’d’ve taught ya how to use it and so you knew that and could pass it on. It became the medicine of the house, the medicine spreading everywhere it’s needed. Try to do that with a beaker drug! No, in that way this current medical system makes us dependent. And when someone’s dependent, it’s true that they become helpless in some way. Use to be people knew how to take care of themselves and pass on the healing knowledge, but now it’s relegated to ol white gown in his white sterile room.
The dependency isn’t doing good things for our society, you see. Yes, it saves lives and makes some a great deal better, but a lot falls through the cracks, a whole lot isn’t getting much better. And it’s this I’m writing about, this that needs a-pointing-to, cuz it’s easy to get swept up in “what is” and forget there could be somewheres better we can go. Medicine of the people, medicine of the earth, the old white coats make a fear factor about the herbs, but they’re the traditional allies of what cures.
falling leaves as they come 
This was a really interesting read.
I’d never really thought about any of it before, just the typical well the beakers and drugs are more advanced and thus are better. Never really considered how dependent and helpless we are becoming to the medical profession, in certain aspects.
Thanks for stopping by, David. Yes, this is something I reflect upon often. Glad the piece interested you & made some new thought pathways 🙂