Today’s word of the day, courtesy of the Word Gurus, is meliorism. Interestingly, the email I received from the Word Gurus spelled the word with two ls (melliorism), but I believe the correct spelling includes only one. The noun means “the doctrine that the world tends to become better or may be made better by human effort” (https://www.dictionary.com/browse/meliorism). According to etymonline.com, “as a metaphysical concept, ‘belief that the world tends to become better or is capable of improvement;’ in practical terms, ‘the improvement of society by regulated practical means;’ by 1868, attributed to ‘George Eliot’ (Mary Anne Evans), from Latin melior ‘better’ (see meliorate) + -ism” (https://www.etymonline.com/word/meliorism#etymonline_v_44657).

I think that I may be a bit of a meliorist. For years while I was teaching (I taught at Southern Wesleyan University in Central, SC, for almost 28 years), I would ask me students a question that went something like this: “How many of you had a teacher in high school who told you that the world was getting worse and worse?” Usually at least half the class would raise their hands. Then I would explain to them why right now is the best time to be alive in all of human history. Why would I make that kind of assertion when there is war in Ukraine, war in the Middle East, terrorism around the world, illegal border crossings, and a global pandemic, among other problems.

So I’m going to run a list of things that have been accomplished in the last hundred years or so to make life better.

In 1920, Earle Dickson invented the band aid. The story is that, after his marriage in 1917, he noticed that his wife kept cutting herself when in the kitchen. Not big cuts, just little nicks. Gauze had been part of the medical package for years, but gauze was too big and bulky for his wife to be able to keep doing what she was doing. So he fold small pieces of gauze and attached them to surgical tape. Then he showed his bosses at Johnson and Johnson, and before long he was a vice president. This simple product protects cuts from being irritated by clothing or foreign objects, and it keeps dirt and germs from entering a wound, reducing the chances of infection, and infections of wounds were a significant cause of death before the 20^th century.

In 1928, Alexander Fleming, a Scottish physician, discovered the antibiotic properties of what is now known as penicillin. The story goes that Fleming was working on different strains of the bacteria staphylococci. He left several culture plates in his lab when he went on vacation with his family. Upon his return, he discovered that one of the culture plates had been contaminated with a fungus, and that the bacteria near the fungus were gone. He had accidentally discovered the world’s first antibiotic. Prior to the widespread use of antibiotics, communicable diseases were the leading cause of death in industrialized countries; since, the leading cause of death is non-communicable diseases. And the average lifespan at birth in industrialized nations grew from under 50 to almost 80.

In 1939, Igor Sikorski, a Russian engineer who emigrated to the United States, invented the world’s first viable helicopter. I would love to have a clever little story about Sikorski’s invention, but apparently he just worked really hard to invent it. What are the advantages of the helicopter? Because they can lift straight up and come straight down, they can go places that a fixed-wing airplane cannot go. Helicopters are used in a variety of ways, but the most beneficial, in my view, is their use to transport accident victims to hospitals. There is no telling how many people have been saved by helicopters. I might also mention that my brother-in-law flew a chopper for a hospital in Winston-Salem, NC, before his death.

In 1943, Willem Kolff invented the dialysis machine. Actually, the first 15 patients he treated with the machine died, buy in 1945, he succeeded in saving someone’s life with his machine. Kolff also worked on the development of other artificial organs; in fact, he is considered the father of artificial organs. Since the development of dialysis, millions of people have been saved by Kolff’s invention.

In 1945, Percy Spencer discovered the heat-producing effects of the compact cavity magnetron tube while he was working on radar—it melted a chocolate bar in his pants. Magnetron tubes were used during WWII for short-range military radar. Spencer had been working on ways to mass-produce such tubes. After his discovery, Spencer invented the microwave oven. Such ovens began to be popular in the 1970s, and now at least 9 in every 10 households have one. They make meal preparation easier for busy modern families, and they are especially useful for reheating food. More recently, microwaves have become useful for recycling solar cells, treating pests in soil, and even smelting metals on the Moon.

In 1937, the year in which the Social Security program was enacted into law in the United States, when the retirement age was set at 65, the average life expectancy for men in the USA was just over 58, and for women it was just over 62. Today those numbers are 73.5 for men and 79.3 for women. But it’s not just longevity. The elderly are staying active in ways that would not have been imagined in ages past. In 2003, researchers at the University of California, Irvine, began the 90+ study, looking at the lives of people who are over 90.

I have looked at the health and longevity advances made in the last 100 years, but there are other areas of human life that are improving. For instance, in 1820, the world had about 1 billion people, of whom over 90% lived in extreme poverty (defined as living on less than $1.90/day). 200 years later, the world has over 7 billion people, but the number living in extreme poverty is actually less than the number in 1820. Less than 10% of the world’s population live in extreme poverty.

And that doesn’t count how cheap most things are today compared to ages past, especially if we look at the cost of goods in terms of hours of work to obtain those goods. For instance, young people today have never had to pay for a long-distance phone call, unless they were paying roaming fees in a foreign country. Really young people can’t remember how we used to pay for texts by the character. I paid more, not even counting inflation, for a dual-floppy-drive CPM computer in 1982 than I did last year for a laptop with tons of memory.

People today live easier, longer, and with more leisure time than ever before. Of course, we still have our problems—depression, suicide, disease, and even poverty. There are still conflicts. But more people are better off than ever before, and life will continue to get better.

The image today is of a birthday party. The woman in the middle is Dorris. She is part of a pickleball group that I am a member of. We celebrated her 89^th birthday. That’s right. She’s 89, and while she is not really that quick on her feet, she sure can hit the ball.