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While searching in my archives for photos to illustrate MIT History of Science professor David Kaiser's upcoming book (tentatively entitled How the Hippies Saved Physics) I excavated many Paleolithic layers of personal history including this bill for my birth in a homeopathic hospital in Pittsburgh, PA.
The services for which the hospital billed my parents are itemized thus: "Flat rate for 12 days room and board, delivery room, anesthesia, laboratory tests, routine medicines, care of baby included."
The total bill? $40.00.
Of course I was born in the middle of America's Great Depression, when forty dollars was a lot of money.
The services for which the hospital billed my parents are itemized thus: "Flat rate for 12 days room and board, delivery room, anesthesia, laboratory tests, routine medicines, care of baby included."
The total bill? $40.00.
Of course I was born in the middle of America's Great Depression, when forty dollars was a lot of money.
3 comments:
$40 would be the cost of a couple of aspirins in today's medical matrix.
I recall about 12 - 13 years ago I was attending a very lovely friend's presentation at a conference in one of the big techno-fluff hotels in San Jose, and I had a some sort of seizure, passed out in the hotel lobby . . . big drama for the moment.
Ambulance comes in, medic folks complete with oxygen mask had me strapped into a gurney, and off I went to the local hospital (Kaiser, as I recall).
After several hours of observation, and some tests, they released me, let me go home.
The total bill for that momentary bit of medical drama - just a tad under $5,000.
I wouldn't even hazard a guess as to what that sort of moment of medical drama would cost today.
Is it just me, or is there something really, really . . . really wrong with this picture?
Nick, Nothing wrong with your "picture" at all ... it is quite focused. Most logical people KNOW what is "out of focus". Ginny
What a treasure; what handwriting! I was precocious, so my Dad put ink eraser on my birth cert. and changed the date to put me in Kindergarten a year early. Oh, yea, he also 'made' me a Scorpio, instead of Sag. Try that now.
io
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