Dr Lehmann, an amazing man, was a recent guest speaker in
class.
He uses his medical
and engineering skills to design and manufacture inexpensive and highly
portable medical machines.
He developed an affordable home-use ultra-sound scanner the
size of a flashlight that can remote an image to a medical center or hospital
where the picture can be analyzed.
After displaying and explaining other low-cost, small-size,
medical innovations; he started talking about another passion of his; Kenya.
He mentioned one rural village that has no electricity,
toilets, or local source of water.
The children have the job of walking about a mile to fetch
water for their families.
Dr. Lehman took a trip with the barefoot children and
noticed that they walked through human feces on the way to the well.
He showed a photo of the well that was a hole a few
feet across and a few feet deep, with a dark puddle at the bottom.
He said, “Notice that the children are standing in the
water.
This is the very water that the family will be drinking.”
There was an afterthought.
Didn’t these people ---although humble, poor, and uneducated--- have the good sense to not poison their own well?
Aren’t we all born with an innate sense to not allow waste
to mix with our life-sustaining water?
How could the elders not instruct the children to carefully
avoid stepping in the waste when going to the well, or, to somehow clean their
feet before standing in the water?
Then, another afterthought.
Isn’t that exactly what we’re doing to our own precious water
supply?
We pour insecticide and herbicides on our lawns.
We broadcast chemical fertilizer on to our greens to make them
greener.
Our cesspools seep human waste down into our aquifer.
We flush unused antibiotics down our toilets.
With soiled feet, we stand in our own well.
4 comments:
"Don't drink the water Doc."
We have passed the 7 billion mark in population. It is getting more and more difficult to hide our wastes. The old expression "don't s--t where you eat, is becoming harder and harder because we eat everywhere and everything. We are polluting the planet and using up its resources. Happy Holidays (and welcome back Bruce)!
Dr Lehmann also developed an ultra sound device, stethoscope that takes 3 minute soundbites, a blood pressure cuff, a weight scale, and more.
They are all wireless and can be sent anyplace in the world.
Dr Lehmann also developed an ultra sound device, stethoscope that takes 3 minute soundbites, a blood pressure cuff, a weight scale, and more.
They are all wireless and can be sent anyplace in the world.
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