Man has three thousand diseases, but life and death cannot be cured. Byron once said that the affairs of the world, except for life and death, are not trivial.
Throughout the modern history full of the blood and tears of predecessors, countless heroes and sons and daughters have thrown their heads and spilled their blood, and what they have diligently sought is only to let the Chinese people survive, or to live better, in order to achieve this goal, they will do whatever it takes, even if it is youth, even if it is life.
As a result, New China was founded, and the country that carried the countless good wishes of its predecessors reopened the chapter of history.
However, the new China at the beginning of its establishment was still weak, and the successive years of war had left the domestic economy lagging behind, and the development of science and technology was far behind that of the developed countries, but this was not the most painful, and poverty and backwardness brought to the people not only the lack of material life, but also various diseases.
Especially in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, the grass-roots people lacked a basic understanding of many regional diseases and regarded them as "destiny", thus creating many local cluster endemic diseases.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="6" > endemic disease control team</h1>
Li Desheng, as the founding major general of new China, was appointed as the leader of the prevention and control team after the state decided to readjust the leading group for the prevention and control of endemic diseases in 1977.
As a veteran of the battlefield who has experienced wind and rain, after seeing the outbreak of endemic diseases in one area after another, Li Desheng has invested 100,000 points of energy in this, he said: "Chinese people have not been defeated by invaders, let alone beaten down by endemic diseases." ”
So, what is an endemic disease, and why does the state take such a serious attitude towards this disease?
First of all, endemic diseases do not refer to a specific disease, but to those diseases with regional pathogenesis characteristics, which usually only occur in a certain area and are inextricably linked to local natural environmental factors.
For example, geology, landforms, water quality, climate, food, living conditions, etc. may be the cause of endemic diseases, coupled with the lack of basic understanding of endemic diseases at that time, so this situation is particularly common in many backward areas.
In China, classic endemic diseases include endemic goiter, endemic cretinosis, endemic fluorosis, osteoarthritis, Keshan disease, plague and ruscellosis.
Among them, most endemic diseases are caused by the lack of a trace element needed by the body, for example, endemic goiter and endemic cretin disease are mainly caused by a lack of iodine.
In the 1970s and 1980s, the edible salt used in many parts of China was still uniodized salt, so the people in some areas seriously underestimated the intake of iodine in their daily lives, resulting in goiter and Keting disease, and Ketin disease also has a name called DSI.
At that time, the people in many places did not have a high level of education, and there were still some remnants of feudal ideas in their thinking, and in some areas where endemic Cretin disease was frequent, if the people gave birth to children with mental insufficiency, they would not consider that there was something wrong with the child's body, but would think that they had done something wrong, and they would repay the child.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="16" > prevention and treatment of endemic diseases</h1>
In the northeast of Heilongjiang, there is a small village called Jixian Village, which in the 1980s was the nationally famous "Fool Village". As the name suggests, there are many people in this village who suffer from dementia.
Before General Li Desheng visited this village, the people in the village thought that it was because the village was cursed that so many congenitally incomplete children were born every year, and among the people who left Jixian Village to make a living, there were very few people who broke out of this disease, which made people's thoughts even deeper.
However, when General Li Desheng took over the endemic disease prevention and control team, he began to deeply understand the causes and common symptoms of endemic diseases, so when he learned that Jixian Village also had a nickname of "Fool Village", he quickly attracted his attention. Therefore, he braved the hardships and dangers and personally came to Jixian Village with the experts of the prevention and control team, starting from the villagers' lives bit by bit.
However, it is easy to say, but the difficulty of doing it is very imaginable. The causes of endemic diseases are complex, ranging from climate, habits, water sources, geology, etc., and the scope of the investigation is very large, so the investigation work is very difficult.
However, just when the investigation work was in a bottleneck, General Li Desheng creatively proposed an idea, he suggested that the experts of the prevention and control team could start with the water source to see if there was a problem with the water source in Jixian Village.
Lee Tak Sang
At that time, the work of the prevention and control team had entered a bottleneck period, so after General Li Desheng made this suggestion, they tried to investigate and analyze the water source problem.
Later results can be imagined, the content of trace elements in the water source of Jixian Village is very small, and because of its remote location, the villagers here can rarely eat fresh fruits and vegetables in their daily lives, so they are extremely deficient in iodine.
Finding the cause of the disease, General Li Desheng quickly proposed a solution, the best way to improve the local water quality is to dig a well, but also if it is a deep well, only in this way can we completely improve the water situation in Jixian Village.
Under the leadership of General Li Desheng, the local government sent special personnel to assist the men, women and children of Jixian Village to dig wells together, the water situation of the villagers improved, the condition of people suffering from Ketin disease and goiter was gradually controlled, and among newborns, the proportion of normal children born increased significantly, and the former "Fool Village" became what they called a "happy village" through this battle.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="26" > Li Desheng talks about Keshan disease</h1>
In addition to endemic goiter and endemic cretin disease, Keshan disease is also one of the classic diseases of endemic diseases.
Keshan disease mostly occurs in some agricultural areas of China, because the place of first discovery is Keshan County, Heilongjiang Province, China, so it is named Keshan disease. The main symptoms of Keshan disease are myocardial damage, often accompanied by acute or chronic heart failure and various arrhythmias, which can cause life-threatening problems in severe cases.
After Serving as the leader of the endemic disease prevention and control team, General Li Desheng personally visited many patients with severe Keshan disease, and looked at these compatriots whose lives were in danger, he was heartbroken, and when discussing Keshan disease, he also said such a sentence: "This disease is very serious, one generation is on, the second generation is stupid, and the third generation is four generations of broken roots." ”
The meaning of this sentence is easy to understand, and even if it is not limited to Keshan disease, most endemic diseases are the same, because the ancestors of the family live in the same place, and in the long run, the next generation will only follow the father and grandfather, and fall into the point of serious illness.
Moreover, Keshan disease is more life-threatening than goiter and Kertin disease, and the mortality rate is very high in patients with Keshan disease.
After investigation and research, the cause of this disease is not clear, but through the examination and analysis of keshan disease patients' hair and blood, it is found that in their bodies, the content of selenium is much lower than in other regions, for this reason, experts suggest that patients can effectively prevent the occurrence of Keshan disease by oral administration of sodium selenite.
However, even if Keshan disease is mainly concentrated in a certain area and has obvious endemic characteristics, in the population in the area of incidence, Keshan disease affects only a small proportion, and unlike other local diseases, the cause of Keshan disease seems to be not only because of the lack of selenium intake, but also may be related to soil and water nutrients or viral infections.
Thanks to the efforts of the endemic disease prevention and control team led by General Li Desheng, Keshan disease has basically disappeared in the 1980s of the last century, and since then, keshan disease has never been heard of in any part of the country.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="35" > progress in the treatment of endemic diseases</h1>
Although endemic diseases have seriously affected the people's happy lives in many places, under the visits and investigations of General Li Desheng for many years, he also had to admit that the reason why most endemic diseases are serious to a certain extent is directly related to the backwardness of the localities.
We also said that most of the causes of endemic diseases are due to the lack of trace elements, but in the daily nutrients needed by our human body, trace elements actually account for only a small proportion, if the local water source contains trace elements needed by the human body, then local people naturally do not need to supplement additionally through other methods.
But if there is a trace element lacking in the local water source, the locals can also supplement it by eating some fresh vegetables and fruits.
However, as we all know, in the 1970s and 1980s, China's economy was just starting out, and in the developed areas around Jiangsu and Zhejiang, it is better to say, especially in the remote villages of some backward areas, the people's lives are still only maintained at the subsistence line, in this case, how can they rely on eating fresh fruits to supplement the trace elements needed by the body?
Therefore, this has led to the emergence of cluster endemic diseases in many backward areas. Therefore, General Li Desheng also said that to cure endemic diseases, we must grasp the cure of diseases and the treatment of poverty together.
Fortunately, with the development of the country, the central government not only attaches great importance to the prevention and treatment of endemic diseases, but also begins to widely popularize effective methods for the prevention and treatment of endemic diseases after the domestic economic level has improved.
Among them, including the iodized salt we see with the naked eye today, are all for the prevention and treatment of endemic diseases, with the intervention of the national compulsory force, the general public for the prevention and treatment of basic endemic diseases have begun to understand, coupled with the improvement of economic level, the incidence of endemic diseases in many areas of incidence has begun to improve significantly.
Up to now, most of the endemic diseases in China have specific prevention and treatment measures, the incidence rate has been greatly reduced, except for a very small number of areas still have the risk of outbreak of endemic diseases, most areas are no longer afraid of endemic diseases.
Most importantly, economic development has not only brought about the improvement of people's living standards, but also ideological emancipation, today's China, even if there are regional people suffering from endemic diseases, they will no longer hide their diseases and avoid medical treatment, but will seek hospital treatment for the first time, in this case, most patients can get good treatment.
The motherland is strong and prosperous, and the people are healthy. The meaning of these eight words may be more reflected in the prevention and treatment of endemic diseases.