Sawbones 357: The US Surgeon General Published 16th February 2021 Listen here on themcelroy.family Intro (Clint McElroy): Sawbones is a show about medical history, and nothing the hosts say should be taken as medical advice or opinion. It’s for fun. Can’t you just have fun for an hour and not try to diagnose your mystery boil? We think you’ve earned it. Just sit back, relax and enjoy a moment of distraction from that weird growth. You’re worth it. [theme music plays] Justin: Hello everybody, and welcome to Sawbones: a marital tour of misguided medicine. I’m your cohost, Justin McElroy. Sydnee: And I’m Sydnee McElroy. Justin: And I’m Justin McElroy, and today we are going to talk about medicine and the way it impacts us. [laughs] Sydnee: Is this a new thing you’re doing? I don’t… you didn’t— no, you have to workshop this stuff with me ahead of this. You can’t just— Justin: Welcome to Health Watch. Welcome to Health Watch. Sydnee: No. Mm-mm. No. we’re not changing the name. And that would be a whole other podcast. Justin: Welcome to Health Line. Sydnee: No. No. Justin: Sydnee, tell everybody what we’re gonna talk about because I left my special blue-blocking sunglasses and I’m a flower that can’t look at a screen for a half hour while we record this podcast without my special glasses. Sydnee: Oh, yeah. Justin: So, tell them what we’re talking about. Sydnee: For all us medical professionals out there who have to stare a screen to do an EMR all day, we are short on sympathy. So, Justin, the first thing I wanna get out of the way before we start this show— Justin: I’m back. What did I miss? Sydnee: Nothing. Justin: Take it from the top. Sydnee: Is Surgeons General. Justin: Sturgeon general. Sydnee: Not Surgeon Generals. Justin: Surgeons General. Sydnee: [laughs] I believe that is accurate. Justin: What if we all just, as a society, got together and said Surgeon Generals sounds better and we should just do that? Sydnee: Well, I think— I’m basing that off of— I don’t hear that corrected as much as Attorneys General. Justin: Yes. Sydnee: That one I hear— Justin: Which tells you something about the landscape we’ve been living in for the past few years, eh? [laughs] Sydnee: [laughs] I also think— and this is, uh, this is me, a doctor, making a joke so please, before lawyers attack me, I also think it just speaks to the fact that doctors just go, “whatever, I don’t know,” and move on, and attorneys are much more likely to be, ”I’m sorry. Excuse me.” This was aimed at Rileigh, budding attorney Rileigh, who would definitely correct me and say, “I think you mean Attorneys General, not Attorney Generals, Sydnee.” Justin: This one started— I think I was probably at the root of this one, because I released that we had a new administration that actually made it fun to look at politics again without having to shield your eyes or look at it through some sort of shadow creating box like you’d use in an eclipse. Sydnee: I don’t know. It’s still, I wouldn’t say fun, but at least I can engage with it to see what’s happening, to take a critical eye to things and see, like, “I don’t like this, I do like this, I need to call about this, okay this seems good,” without just like, being completely horrified by the whole thing. Justin: Yeah. Sydnee: Right, you know? You can engage— it’s something you can work with. Justin: Yes. Sydnee: [laughs] This is something I can work with. Justin: This I can help— this, I can work with. Sydnee: There’s lots of room for improvement, don’t get me wrong, but we can work with this. Justin: We can work with this. Sydnee: You wanted to know the history or Surgeons General. Justin: Yeah! Sydnee: Why we have one. Justin: And— Sydnee: What it is? Why do we have it? Justin: And just like, about our current Surgeons General. Sydnee: Well, I don’t have a ton of info about the person in the position currently. Justin: Okay. Sydnee: I thought you wanted to know the history of the thing. The position. Justin: Yeah, but like, do I know them? Is what— Sydnee: Well, no, I mean, not personally. I don’t think so. Justin: Okay, well then it’s less interesting. Sydnee: I’ll tell you her name by the end of the show. Justin: I married you, so I thought there was a chance I might know them. Sydnee: [laughs] Right now, there’s an acting surgeon general, because the Biden administration has— Justin: Like a—[laughs] Did they get the Good Doctor or Doctor House or one of those other acting doctors? Sydnee: Mm hmm, mm hmm. Justin: [laughs] George Clooney. Sydnee: Where’s your rim shot, there? Justin: Anthony Edwards? Hold on… is it that button? Sydnee: Nope. Oh no. Justin: Which button’s that? Sydnee: No, no, don’t do that button. Justin: That one’s the reggae horn. I gotta— Sydnee: No, that one was “taint tanning”. Justin: My— is that? No, that’s “my wife”. Hold on. Um… Sydnee: Okay, we have to move on. Justin: Alright. Sydnee: In the early days of the United States, it was hard to be a sailor. Justin: [laughs] Sydnee: It was tough to be a seaman. Justin: It’s tough to be a sailor out there. Sydnee: Yeah, it was hard to be a sailor. Why, you may ask? Well, first of all, I mean, sea travel was rough back then for everybody, right? Like, long— you were out there a long time, we already know you didn’t have vitamin C, we’ve talked exc— we’ve talked a lot about, uh, scurvy, so you already know that. You know that conditions were rough for sailors out there on the sea. Justin: Right. It’s tough out there. Sydnee: And they were busy. The other thing is that sea travel was absolutely essential for the function of the newly minted United States of America. That was the whole basic backbone of commerce, the economy, it was all sea travel, essentially, right? To get stuff from first colony to colony and then state to state and the surrounding areas. So, the sailors were busy, their ability to do their job was vital not only to them as, you know, individual humans, but also to the whole country. Relied on sailors. Justin: Sailors. Sydnee: Yes. Justin: The lifeblood of America. Sydnee: So, getting sick was a big deal. If too many sailors, and especially if you think about like, infections diseases or nutritional deficiencies, that if one person on a boat might have, a lot of other people probably have too. Justin: You may have seen this in cruise ships recently, this phenomenon play out. Sydnee: Uh huh. Or if they’re all eating the same thing, they’re probably all deficient in the same thing. Because of that, they were at greater risk for illness, they went, you know, from port to port exposing themself to different things, different diseases, you know, it was easy to transmit infectious diseases that way, and like I said, just the general inadequate nutrition, less that ideal living situations, it was hard. And when they would get sick and a whole ship of people would get sick, it was a big deal for the economy. Justin: Right. Sydnee: So, when a seaman or seawoman— although at the time, a lot of people were seamen. I guess we could say they were seapeople? Will that… is that acceptable? Justin: [laughs] That sounds like—that’s like right on the verge of merpeople. Like, you’re right there. Sydnee: A lot of these, when you read these histories, whether you’re reading, like, the history of this on the health and human services website or whatever, like, official government histories, they’re just called seamen over and over again. [laughs] Justin: Sea— we get it. Sydnee: I like sailors. Justin: Sailors, sure. Sydnee: So, the hospitals, when they would get sick, that they had access to were really dependent on where they were, right? I mean, if you’re thinking about— what we’re talking about right now is like, the end of the 1700s, beginning of the 1800s time period, okay? Justin: Are we past limes? Do we know how good limes are for everybody at this point? Sydnee: Uh, no. Not widely known. Justin: That helps me track it. Sydnee: And like, generally speaking, f you think about the situation with doctors, hospitals, medical care in general, the availability of that kinda help, I mean we are right after the United States has become a country, okay? Like, right post-revolution. This is where we are, and how good were the hospital systems probably? Justin: Not good? Sydnee: I mean, no. [laughs] Justin: Bad. Sydnee: A lot of them, no, not very— Justin: You might even go so far as to say bad. Sydnee: Not very good. And I mean, you might find some in some port cities that were better. That had more access to goods and services, that had more access to doctors, that had an actual doctor working there, maybe. Um, but then there were other places where the sailors might stop and be sick where the hospital was essentially a hotel and that was it.