Summary of India

This essay is a personal piece, written by the author, Perri Klass. She writes about her disheartening experience in her medical position, in India. It doesn't take her long to realize the many differences and challenges there are in the world.

Klass focuses on three differences that she interprets: "The people look different"; "The diseases are different"; "The expectations are different." The families described in this essay are poor and ultimately struggling for survival. It is difficult for the author to comprehend the many differences in diseases, defects and prognoses found in this foreign place. Perri Klass comes from Boston, where medicine, vaccinations and treatments are no issue. Diseases and sickness are preventable. She is working in an entirely different world; what could be preventable and treatable is killing its victims without effort. Klass states that "These differences reflect the partitioning of the species, because they're almost all preventable diseases, and their prevalence is a product of poverty, lack of vaccinations, of malnutrition and poor sanitation" (Klass,1987, p.103). The author tries to see the positive side of being able to see the diversity in human illness, but returns to the idea that "this isn't a difference to be accepted without outrage" (Klass, 1987, p.103). The people of India are very aware of the possibility of death and the reality that they face every day. She is making us aware of how naïve our generation is to death from disease in third world countri