I was thinking about breaking people's bones, either with a hammer or brute
strength in fingers and hands. My original purpose became obsolete, but it
did occur to me that going from top to bottom, breaking all of someone's
bones every 3cm or so might prove to be beneficial to the country.
Babies have rubbery bones. You can test this at home: depress the skull of a
baby and it'll spring back into position (this leaves bruises so do try to
use someone else's baby). It's hard to break rubbery bones, you just end up
bending and folding the baby backwards across the kneecap hoping for the
first sign of tearing that can be pulled and twisted to a full-scale break.
There's an awful lot of baby to break though; it's simply not efficient.
Cutting through the bones is a little more efficient, but it means
incredibly invasive surgery, splitting the baby from top to bottom, peeling
all the skin back, sawing through the bones, then sewing the skin back up
again. The first problem is cost: surgeons cost money. If the NHS is to be
the unguarded success it has threatened to be, then medical procedures
should be carried out with no thought to the cost or benefit to the patient.
We live in the real world however. Anyone who uses the NHS is viewed as a
pinko runt and will be blacklisted from ever working in Hollywood. What the
people who live in the real world don't realise is that preventative
medicine is cheaper than cure, regardless of the cost.
The second problem with cutting a baby open to break its bones (remember we
were talking about that before I taught you everything you need to know
about McCarthyism) is heavy scarring. With no prospect of protective gloves
for masseuses on the horizon, to embark upon an international policy of bone
cutting, that brings with it dense masses of scar tissue, is short-sighted.
Bones have to be broken, not cut; babies are too rubbery.
(You do get why we have to break the bones don't you? Healed bones are
stronger than bones that haven't been broken. Break all bones everywhere and
you cut casualty waiting times in half as people fall from high windows and
walk away with little more than a slight headache, or get hit by a car and
are more worried about getting the tyre stains out of their new trousers. We
send all these doctors to medical school for years and years and years and
not one of them has had the wisdom to do this small thing to help people.
Physician, stop healing thyself, and heal other people by breaking their
bones).
Babies are too rubbery, but by the time they're active children running
around, breaking bones, walking into doors, falling downstairs in the
bungalow, it'll be shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. They
talk too much too. If a baby has had all their bones broken or cut, they
might well cry, but babies always cry. Check the nappy, slip a tit in their
mouth, and if neither of those work, inject them with morphine. A four year
old child (gotta do it before they start school, cos it takes a long time
for bones to heal, and we couldn't miss them learning how to write a k with
the annoying loop as part of the top diagonal which no-one uses) who's had
all his bones broken will wake up in hospital and say "I say, doctor, I
appear to be in a lot of pain. Could you tell me what happened? The last
thing I remember my parents were telling me to look at a picture of a clown,
and pay no attention to the man behind me with a big needle full of
anaesthetic, and a hammer. What happened after that? Was I hit by a
choo-choo?" (Isn't it sweet how young children don't know the proper name
for a train, so say choo-choo instead?) To have to field those questions
hour after hour, day after day, is incredibly sapping on the morale of
doctors. It's incredibly stressful to have to say "We broke your bones so
you'll grow up all big and strong and have hair on your chest", even more
stressful than buying a pizza.
I'm afraid I don't have any answers for when the best time should be. I
probably shouldn't have got your hopes up that I did. Sorry.