Epicurus on Pain and Modern Medicine
The ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus writes about pain. He says,
"Continuous pain does not last long in the body. On the contrary, pain, if extreme, is present a short time. And even that degree of pain which barely outweighs pleasure in the body does not last for many days together. Illnesses of long duration even permit of an excess of pleasure over pain in the body."
This was not necessarily true at his time, but it is becoming more and more true in our time because we have all these wonders of modern medicine. We have painkillers, we have other medicines that can treat inflammations, we have surgery, and so we can deal with many of these problems of chronic pain or acute pain. We have dentists who can remove a tooth and replace it.
The Fortune of Modern Medicine
And we should perhaps remind ourselves of how lucky we are that we can live a life like that — where we don't need to be afraid of pain. When we think of death or when we think of pain, then most of the time this causes us a feeling of anxiety, of dread, or fear. But we have to remind ourselves that actually, we live in a society that is able to take care of pain. And if many people don't have access to our medical technologies, it's not a problem of the technology. It's a problem of our society that excludes many people from being able to access these wonders of modern medicine. And perhaps we should do something about that.
Thank you, and see you tomorrow.
