Issues In Aldous Huxley's Time With Death

The issues in Aldous Huxley’s time with death where different but similar to the problems we now face with death. The issue with people dying in America is still a very real threat, with tragic events happening everyday taking more and more lives. This poses the challenge of reducing death, could a person extend their life or prevent it somehow? Aldous Huxley’s America faced lots of similar issues with death that the modern U.S faces. A huge problem that still plagues the U.S today is poverty. This was also a problem in Huxley’s time. Huxley lived in a world where poverty was the norm; he lived during the great depression. During the great depression many people lost their jobs, as many as 12,000 a day (“Great Depression Poverty”). The stock market crashed and stunted the growth of many companies making them unable to employ new workers. This made new jobs almost impossible to come by.

Everyone gets sick whether it’s something like a simple cold or maybe it’s the recent outbreak of an even scarier strain of the flu. We have many deadly diseases we still cannot cure today, and in Huxley’s time there were even less we could vaccinate for. A major problem in Huxley’s time was Polio which was an epidemic in even the United States. Many people would be born with the disease or get it very young and this would paralyze large portions of the population if not treated properly (“History of Polio”). Cancer which is still a problem today although soon to be better was even worse in Huxley’s time as well. People didn’t know about carcinogens that could cause cancer and even some like substances such as mercury children played with (“Mercury: Is This Toxic Heavy Metal Found In Your Mouth”). Due to lack of scientific research and ability Huxley’s time may have been worse in the way people died from diseases, but it still shows similarities to how we may die