Good medical care requires making the right decisions: To test, treat or do nothing. In the face of uncertainty, Franklin came to believe he made the wrong decision to forgo smallpox inoculation for his son in 1736.
Decisions in medicine would be easy if they consisted of this choice: Take treatment and you will live; don't and you will die. Unfortunately, Franklin's choice was not so simple. Franklin's son could die if either choice was made.
If there was no risk of smallpox then “do nothing” made sense. Inoculation became a relevant option when smallpox arrived in town. The key to the decision was the probability that Franklin's son would become infected in the natural way. If this risk was high enough, then at some point inoculation with it's 2% mortality would be justified.
After Ben Franklin lost his 4 year old son to Smallpox, he became an advocate for Inoculation, and stated in his autobiography: “I long regretted bitterly, and still regret that I had not given it to him by inoculation."
3d wooden brain teasers for you to try via OMG Facts http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/omg-facts/WpAq/~3/5B3z8eeSoB8/59528
3d wooden brain teasers for you to try from Net Sauce http://netsauce.blogspot.com/2013/11/benjamin-franklin-biggest-regret-was.html
No comments:
Post a Comment