Detroit Medicine Will Heal The World, Starting With Your Writer in Detroit
In 1915, Henry Ford Made an Investment in Detroit Medicine
Wednesday, December 7th, 2022 at 9:07 AM
Henry Ford Health
New Center One
Detroit Michigan
If I were a U.S. Navy Ship on the sea, I would need time in dry dock. I remember taking the Elizabeth River ferry from Portsmouth to Norfolk, Virginia. I loved the commute by water. The ferry passed great warships loaded up into floating cradles These dry docks drew my attention as I crossed. The contracting houses pulled out everything from the wiring to the plumbing to the weapons systems. I feel like one of those aging ships. Detroit Medicine serves as my dry dock today. Here in the New Center, I'm under repair at the Henry Ford.
Allergy Rheumatology Sleep Medicine reads the sign above the reception counter. Two out of three ain't bad. I sleep with horrible inefficiency. Worse, I am the only sibling of four who inherited rheumatoid arthritis from my Grandmother Aino. I'm glad my brothers and sister got a pass on RA. Art makes an annoying companion.
In Aino's time, medicine had very little to offer her. She rubbed her hands in the morning, waiting for aspirin and coffee to bring flexibility back to her fingers. As time moved on, I never learned if she received any better treatment for her condition. She kept active, cooking and shopping and gardening an extensive garden until she needed nursing care. I visited her daily in residential care.
She kept her mental faculties about her all the days of her life. To test herself, she would recite by heart The Cremation of Sam McGee by Robert W. Service. Poems came to her spontaneously, first in Finnish and then translated into English. At the Finnish Lutheran church in Farmington Hills, the minister recited one of her poems in his eulogy. He began with Finnish, and he finished with English. The church had migrated from a community in Detroit, but I have yet to learn the location of their first sanctuary.
Oh, more repairs await my body this winter. Next week, I'll visit the Detroit Medical Center for an appointment with the urologist. I've been devouring pumpkin seeds in preparation for this one. My eyes require attention. Before I apply for a Michigan chauffeur's license, I need the cataract on my left eye address removed.
It's amazing how quickly the cataract advanced. I love to read, and the cataract forces me to work harder to read. Reading is like breathing for me, so I hate my left eye cataract. Thank goodness the right eye remains clear and bright. Thank goodness Detroit Medicine can handle a cataract in stride. In Africa, a pair of cataracts often means the end of a productive life.
Aino’s husband, Edward Jacob, drove my grandmother where ever she needed to go. When she went to church, he sat out in the car, waiting for her. His cataracts spelled the end of his time driving his wife. We didn’t have the surgical options in 1981 that we now have in 2022. The options available were unknown to his wife and he. My grandfather had driven a car since he could afford to buy one, and I’m betting he was one of the first drivers with a Model T in the Upper Peninsula. That Edward Jacob could drive. I was given his Dodge Aspen to drive. I drove it in his honor, but with great sadness.
How long has Detroit served as a world leader in medicine? While it's common to point out Henry Ford's flaws, his family put Detroit on the right path by establishing Henry Ford Hospital in 1915. Dr Alexander Fleming didn't discover penicillin until thirteen years later. I was studying the Henry Ford logo today. The logo includes a Model T ambulance from that year. Henry Ford probably shipped many of those ambulances to Europe between July 28, 1914 and November 11, 1918, the dates of World War One. The arsenal of democracy was also the hospital of democracy.
This logo you’ll find embroidered on your Henry Ford doctor’s lab coat.
Ernest Hemingway. John Dos Passos. Walt Disney. Ray Kroc. Marie Curie. All drove ambulances during World War II. Did Henry Ford build your ambulances? Ambulances outfitted with Marie Curie’s field X-ray machines treated over one million soldiers during World War I. When the injured were taken to Lansing’s Sparrow Hospital after being removed from the rubble of the Bath School in 1927, we can be close to confident those were Model T ambulances.
I can research the facts on Detroit medicine in the days to come. Right now, I sip a coffee as I feel my meds going to work against inflammation. Prescribed today. Fulfilled by Walgreens today. Taken according to instructions today. All acts of modern medicine performed in Detroit proper today. I feel better today than I have in weeks. Gratefully I believe I'll feel even better in the days to come.
Thank you, Doctor Yusef!
