day no. 16,730: prevention is worse than disease

"This is the fundamental fallacy in the whole business of preventive medicine. Prevention is not better than cure. Cutting off a man's head is not better than curing his headache; it is not even better than failing to cure it. And it is the same if a man is in revolt, even a morbid revolt. Taking the heart out of him by slavery is not better than leaving the heart in him, even if you leave it a broken heart. Prevention is not only not better than cure; prevention is even worse than disease. Prevention means being an invalid for life, with the extra exasperation of being quite well. I will ask God, but certainly not man, to prevent me in all my doings. But the decisive and discussable form of this is well summed up in that phrase about the health adviser of society. I am sure that those who speak thus have something in their minds larger and more illuminating than the other two propositions we have considered. They do not mean that all citizens should decide, which would mean merely the present vague and dubious balance. They do not mean that all medical men should decide, which would mean a much more unbalanced balance. They mean that a few men might be found who had a consistent scheme and vision of a healthy nation, as Napoleon had a consistent scheme and vision of an army. It is cold anarchy to say that all men are to meddle in all men's marriages. It is cold anarchy to say that any doctor may seize and segregate anyone he likes. But it is not anarchy to say that a few great hygienists might enclose or limit the life of all citizens, as nurses do with a family of children. It is not anarchy, it is tyranny." — G.K. Chesterton, Eugenics and Other Evils

Preventive Medicine is not merely the suggestion that most men could be healthy, but that all men ought to be. It presumes to know what healthy is for every man and how to produce it in any man and that some men have the authority to force all men to conform their habits accordingly. But prevention fails to take into account that health is a balance. Too much vitamin C for one person may not be enough for another. Not enough fresh air for one man could be too much for another. This isn't to say that there are no factors worth considering when it comes to health per se, but it is to say that we should not mandate them. First of all, the scientists do not know as much as they imagine that they do; and secondly, even if they did, why are all men required to be as healthy as they can be. Some men might choose to risk their health to explore the seas or to dig deep into the heart of the earth. Some men might rather risk their health on glory then hoard it for getting older. Blood and snot are not hygienic, but they are part of being born and growing up. Skinned knees grow character even if they cause an infection. Birth may be risky, but so is enforced infertility. In the end, a man must have the freedom to lay down his life and lose it if he is ever going to have it taken up in finding it.

Matthew 16:25

For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.