#ThinkfullyHabit: Back to the future
In the pursuit of progress and hunt for the future, old ideas can easily get lost, mixed up and forgotten. We may leave ideas behind too quickly; packing them away into dusty closets and forgetting to re-open the door. Good ideas may be sacrificed and buried within bigger failures. Sometimes it helps to dust off and revisit previous ideas because looking back can help with the future.
“When we revisit those old ways of thinking we can find remedies that may benefit us today. ”
WHY?
During the 19th century, leeches were widely used to treat a huge array of health issues. However, by the 20th century the science had moved us on. The idea that illness was a result of imbalances within the body’s four 'humors' (the systems thought to regulate human health, which could be rebalanced through using leeches for bleeding), didn’t hold up to scrutiny.
However, time has come to judge that the backlash against leeches went too far. In 1985, when a dog bit off the ear of a 5 year old boy, a comeback was necessary. No surgeon had successfully reattached an ear before, but Joseph Upton, the boy’s physician tried. While the arteries successfully reattached to let blood into the ear, the veins blocked and struggled to let the blood back out again. His ear turned blacker and blacker. After 4 days of trying to resolve the problem, Upton revived an old idea because nothing else was working. He turned to leeches. He attached two onto the boy’s ear and in minutes they did their work on the congested tissue and his ear began to return to its usual colour. Joseph Upton became the first physician to successfully reattach an ear. This prompted a revival in the use of leeches and in 2004, the FDA in the US approved them as a ‘medical device’. Since then, leeches have frequently been used in many similar operations.
Is it time to revive an old idea you’ve not revisited for some time? Are there ideas you may have accidentally thrown out with the rubbish? It might be time to become a bit nostalgic and re-visit if you've previously had the right idea but at the wrong time. If we stop to look back at our historical ideas, we may spot a few helpful gems tucked away. The best way to the future may be backwards.
REFERENCES
https://nymag.com/vindicated/2016/11/how-leeches-made-their-comeback.html
Sideways, 20. An appointment with Dr Leech, Matthew Syed, BBC Radio 4, Released On: 24 Nov 2021