Article Analysis
Article # 1: The Doctor Who Starved her Patients to Death
Health is important to everyone who wanted to have long and healthy life. Health is what majority of the people think is the kind of wealth which no one can take it away from the owner. Health is something that we should always put priority on because this is what we need in order to normally live our daily lives.
Dr. Linda Hazzard, a doctor from the small town of Olalla near Seattle, has been accused of first class murder after the death of a dozen of people who used to be her so called ‘patients’ in the early years of the 20th century. Hazzard is known to her alternative medication which is merely consisting of fasting. To her, fasting is the aid towards having a healthier body. In her perspective, all causes of diseases are due to the kind and type of food that people eat and that people take in since the day they were born. In order to prevent having diseases that shortens the lives of the people, Hazzard then think that fasting is the way to improve, mitigate and prevent one in having diseases.
She was known to have terrible power over people. She used to be an influential doctor who is accompanied by her strong faith in the occult and deep interests in spiritualism and theosophy. Since she lets her patient starve because of the perspective she keeps holding on to, other people think that her way of practicing medicine is quite demonic. One of the most controversial starvations that have marked the career of Hazzard is the case of the twins of Williamson in which one died and the other was saved from the so called demonic act of the doctor.
There have been many existing alternative medications to cure illnesses in the contemporary society but people, as the owners of their own bodies, should be very careful in choosing what type of alternative medications would suit their health situations. Having proper and enough knowledge on a person’s health statuses would mean much in looking for alternatives. In this case, the twins of Williamson subscribed to the medications of Dr. Hazzard without carefully understanding the reactions of their body towards fasting. One of the twins just found out that fasting affects their health negatively after the death of her twin Claire—too late since she has been doing the same medication as intensely as how Claire does it.
The case has been resolved through legal intervention but in some countries, it would be difficult to attain justice because of different causes of delays. Dr. Hazzard has stayed in jail for quite some time until she has proven that fasting really works. Through series of hearings, Hazzard was able to go out due to the supporting studies and cases filed by her co-doctors and co-alternative medication practitioners that fasting really restores the health of a person.
Yet, short time after, she died. Fasting did work, at least for her at a short time. This case was a lesson to learn for some other people. People should be very careful of making decisions relating to their health because a wrong move might bring a person closer to death. On the side of medical practitioners, they should be very sure of what they want their patients to do because people believe in them knowing that they enough when it comes to the field of medicine. It is quite disappointing that Dr. Hazzard has been using hypnosis, belief on the occult and interests in theosophy without even having enough studies about it. The result: death of patients due to starvation.
Technically, this text is intended for the people who easily subscribe to alternative medications without having knowledge on their health status. I liked the article since it provided the two sides of the story—the opponent’s side and the supporting side. The action that I would be doing to avoid what happened to the twin is to carefully understand what was happening in my body before consulting and subscribing to prescriptions especially from alternative medication.
Article #2: Earthquake
Natural disasters keep coming in different places and countries around the world. These phenomena are irresistible and uncontrolled. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, acid rains, and erosion of permafrost in Alaska are some of the events that people do not have control to. People are clueless that these would come to them. People are always caught unready because it is true that people should always expect the unexpected.
The advancements in technology relevant in disaster preparedness have also been recognized by Stig O. Hestholm who is a seismologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. According to him, new computer models were devised specifically to monitor seismic vibrations that travel in Earth’s crust. These computers were able to estimate ground movements and vibrations which would be very helpful in the field of seismology.
In all the facts and studies that were mentioned, it is then safe to conclude that advancements in technology have played significant roles in making people more prepared to upcoming disasters as well as making people more knowledgeable on the current state of the environment. These technologies, though at times fails, have readied the whole world for the predicted phenomena that could possibly cause large damages. However, as people continue to praise these advancements for making our lives easier, people should also think of whether or not it contributes to exploitation of natural resources.
As we can notice in the given reading that as the technology helps the people to have clues on the disasters that will probably come to the world, on the other side is the different worsening cases of the environment like having more acid rains and the erosion of permafrost. This is then, addressed to the people living near the said places and also to those living in any areas around the globe. At the end of the day, it is on us to draw conclusion on to whether or not one has been compromising for the sake of the other. I liked the article a lot, as it provided enough information that may lead me to the conclusions and to the desire to change what I used to do that may cause damage to the environment. Also, it increased my awareness on the technologies that are present which are really helpful for both the present and the future generations.
Article #3: Earth
There have been a lot of questions that people have in mind when it comes to the reorientation or the changes that are found in the earth’s surface. The movements of and between tectonic plates per se are some of the questions that have almost drained the brains of the experts from the ancient periods up to the contemporary times. However, because the Earth has curious, focused and determined people, there happens the evolution of experts and now we have answers to questions we used to wonder about. On March 20, 1999, the Science News Volume 155 page 191 showed another answer to the disappearance of a gash in South Mozambique, how a large elusive thrust fault has been located in Los Angeles, California and how 1998 has been regarded as the warmest year in the past millennium.
It is through Denzhi Chu and Richard Gordon who both are from Houston that the mysteries behind the gash disappearing in the south of Mozambique have been resolved. Due to their expertise in the field of Earth Science, they had enough guts to be able to come up with a theory on the said problem. Answers were found through their knowledge on ocean rocks which resulted to the motion between the Nubian and Somalian plates.
Another article in the page revealed how an undiscovered yet present elusive thrust fault in Los Angeles has been identified and located to mitigate further destructions and effects. Seismologists have been searching for it since early 19th century and the answers were found after the seismologists named John H. Shaw and Peter M. Shearer had enough knowledge on analyzing topography, geology and the oceanography of Los Angeles. The two were able to discover the large elusive fault which could possibly produce 6.5 magnitude earthquakes according to the researchers. Their discovery has been considered a vast leap forward since the faults were considered and termed blind-thrust faults by the geologist James Dolan.
Lastly, it is the Science News that 1998 has been regarded as the warmest year in the past millennium. This study made use of the analysis on climate which data were recorded by the experts from the time of William the Conqueror. The man behind this study is Michael E. Mann who is also from the University of Massachusetts. Through the data collected by other experts for 1000 years, Mann was able to come up to his conclusion that 1998 was the warmest after his observations that it has unusual climatic numbers. He also concluded that 1990 was the warmest decade from the past 1000 years. However, a researcher of Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, New York left a remark on Mann’s work in which he said that what Mann did is a good first effort yet there is so much more to be done since he said that there are lots of uncertainties in using chronology.
In science, there is a big possibility that negative and positive criticisms would arise. The only thing that should be noted by the scientists and experts in the field of Earth Sciences for example, is that a study does not stop after making and drawing conclusions. There is always more to be done. Recommendations from people and form the researcher himself would be beneficial to be able to have significant continuation of studies in the future.
This article talks to the people and to the aspiring scientists not to settle for less. I personally agree on the note that was given towards the end of the selection that there is really something more that has to be done. Though it is not merely on setting for less but we should always extend our knowledge on something because change is permanent.
Works Cited
Bess Lovejoy. “The Doctor Who Starved Her Patients to Death.” Smithsonian. 28 Oct. 2014. Web. 2 Nov. 2014.
Society for Science and the Public Staff. Earth Science. Science News, Vol. 155, No. 12 p.191. 20 Mar. 1999. Web. 2 Nov. 2014. (http://www.jstor.org/stable/4011147)
Society for Science and the Public Staff. Earth Science. Science News, Vol. 159, No. 24 p.381. 16 Jun. 2001. Web. 2 Nov. 2014. (http://www.jstor.org/stable/3981881)
