Anamnesis vitae patient is 105 years old.
Her file looked no different from the 17 other disease stories of our department, but behind the shabby blue cover was a century of human life.
She was from Sardinia, the year she was born in 1915. A man from another century, from another era, how many things have happened in the world during this period, for the life of this woman: The year before her birth, the First World War began, when she was two years old, there was an October coup in Russia, during her primary school education the Tomb of Tutankhamen was opened, and the following year the USSR was formed, in 1925 people had the opportunity to fly on passenger flights, and the distances between cities and countries were so reduced, at the age of 12, our patient could watch in the cinema the first sound film “Jazz Singer”, and the next year she could see the first Disney sound film.
In the 30s and 40s of the twentieth century, darker discoveries were made: Hitler’s rise to power, Stalin’s repressions, the Holocaust, World War II, the discovery of nuclear energy, these are the whole decades that have left an indelible mark on every bit of our world, is it important to record this in history? And once again, yes, to remember and not forget, because when the events of the past erase from your memory, you risk repeating them in the future.
While we were crossing time so superficially and so rapidly, this young woman turned 37… and that same year a brave man crossed the Atlantic Ocean in a rubber boat, and Watson and Creek in the UK discovered the double helix structure of DNA. In 1957, the European Union was formed, and the European states became a single clan. The year before, the development of mobile phones began. And in 1960, 17 new states appeared on the world map – yes, the independence of African territories. Even that year, the Trieste submerged into the Mariana Trench. The boundaries of the world began to expand in depth and upwards. 1961 – the beginning of the era of space discoveries: the first flight into space. While some borders collapsed, others began to be built – a wall was erected in Berlin, and overnight people were separated.
1962 was a particularly happy year for the people of Liverpool, as four talented musicians created the band “Beatles”, almost like beetles, but with its own beat, a voice in this troubled world.
After half a century of her life, this woman was on the background of completely different scenery: maps have changed, there is an opportunity to cure early incurable pathologies, people could go to the movies, talk on the phone, travel, but did they become happier from this? Perhaps the distant Sardinia gave its inhabitants a chance to slow down the course of time and to be in the joyful ignorance of some changes.
Since 1986, mankind has had the opportunity to observe the consequences of its discoveries and achievements: the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the beginning of the global epidemic of HIV infection. The time has come to destroy the obstacles that were built – the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the collapse of the USSR in 1991. The world map changed again, and Sardinia was still there.
And the woman was getting older. Each passing year was reflected by a new wrinkle on her face, a gray hair in a patch of previously thick hair. Against the background of world history, world events unfolded her own and unique fate with its joys and sorrows.
If only we could write down the whole of her history.
Every patient, person who meets on the way can be a guide to a world where we do not often seek to turn our eyes.
Study, learn, and then you can see much more. The human being is the whole story, an integral part of it.
Journal of a Young Doctor 