ABSTRACT
In the case of health, what we can measure is longevity. Promulgation of the new and –the authors believe –perverse sense of health rests on a chain of logical errors: a reductive trap. Before we enter the trap, health is a robust concept, encompassing broad social and physical dimensions. Research about this hormone combination is interesting for many reasons, but especially because the study reveals how our culture views health and disease. The most convincing arguments for prescribing hormone replacement therapy in the early years of its spreading use were those related to life span. There were lots of claims, made by reputable specialists who had done published, peer-reviewed research, that suggested hormone replacement therapy extended life span. In 1910 America, however, the cultural mainstream still fed a network of small towns and neighborhoods whose health, well-being, and survival was assumed.
