No sooner did we finally get ourselves a little health-care reform than we were inundated with proposals for reforming the health-care reform; and, doubtless, were those proposals to be implemented, we should soon see proposals for reforming the reform of the reform. Yet it need not be such a complicated matter. A little story from the Magazine of Wit and American Harmonist (1821) illustrates how simple health-care reform might be if it were carried out on the Qing Dynasty model:

KIEN LONG, EMPEROR OF CHINA.

Sir George Staunton used to relate a characteristic anecdote of this emperor. He inquired of Sir George the manner in which physicians were paid in England. When his majesty was made to comprehend what the practice was, he exclaimed, “Can any man in England afford to be ill? Now I will inform you,” said he, “how I deal with my physicians. I have four, to whom the care of my health is committed, and a certain weekly salary allowed to them: but the moment I am ill, that salary is stopped till I am well again. I need not inform you, that my illness is never of any long continuance!”

 

Many of the laws on the books in states and local jurisdictions are unenforceable: that is, they would never be upheld if appeal were made to a higher court. That they remain in theoretical force is usually due either to inertia or to some strong political interest in the legislative bodies.

In Dagsboro, Delaware, it is illegal to teach a horse to play backgammon.

In Utah, a man who mentions the name of Brigham Young without removing his hat may be fined 75¢ for the first offense and an even dollar for each offense thereafter.

The Pope is not permitted to set foot in the borough of Dormont, Penna.

Since 2003, citizens of Arkansas have been required to report suspected French people to the state police, on penalty of being declared French themselves.

In Brattleboro, Vt., he that hath two coats is required to impart to him that hath none.

A law dating from 1873 in Oneonta, N.Y., makes each impure thought a separate felony.

The police in Mason City, Iowa, are empowered to shoot mattress salesmen on sight.

In 1922, it was quite possible, and perhaps inevitable, for a magazine writer to say, “More automobiles and more concrete highways each year prophesy the elimination of congestion in large cities.”

This prophecy is to be found in a long article from Illustrated World for May of 1922, in which the author explains how the automobile will solve all our social problems, because “in a few short years congested cities will give way to great highway boulevards with their wonder shops and municipal and pleasure centers.”

Many scraps of history have been swept under the rug and forgotten, but Dr. Boli has such a fondness for them that he has hurriedly assembled a home for stray bits of history on the Web at a site called “The Historical Spectator.” So far there are four articles, all from the same magazine in the same year. But what fascinating scraps of forgotten history they are: the invention of the record changer, British Columbia’s switch from left-hand to right-hand driving, the introduction of charging by the minute for telephone service, and of course the glorious utopia to come promised by the automobile. As he finds more scraps, Dr. Boli will leave them in the same place.