The Grapefruit's Contribution To Medical Measurement
Image by Polifemus via Flickr
The grapefruit was first planted in Jamaica back in the 1700s and did not find its way to the United States until the mid 1800s. Since then the U.S. has become the world's largest producer of grapefruit with China and South Africa in distant second and third place. Nearly one in five Americans enjoy this tart citrus juice every morning with their coffee and newspaper over breakfast.
It's squeezed, sliced, topped with sugar, served for breakfast or a diet lunch. It's chock full of great vitamins and antioxidants that help prevent the formation of cancer and it's also kind of cute looking. The inside of these things come in three different colors, white, pink and ruby red and they were one of the first fruits that actually had patents awarded.
But maybe one of the most important contributions of the grapefruit to humanity is its universal use in the relative measuring of things.
One might think that in medical school there is a course given to prospective doctors in comparative anatomy and the size of a grapefruit. How many times have you heard that a cyst, or tumor or bladder stone referred to as being “about the size of a grapefruit.” Or it's described as “the size of a large grapefruit.” And if that growth is smaller than a grapefruit why don't they say it “was the size of a Valencia orange” rather than “the size of a small grapefruit.”
And just how big is a grapefruit anyhow? The grapefruit growers categorize the grapefruits as small, medium and very large (what happened to large?). So when they are teaching that class in comparative size in medical school, what size grapefruit are they using as a model? It's all so confusing. No wonder it takes five years to graduate from medical school.
But medicine isn't the only place where the grapefruit is called upon to render a comparative size. In London, a Columbian blacktailed hen laid four eggs “the size of grapefruits.” You know that had to hurt. In Lake Viking, MO they experienced a horrendous storm that generated “grapefruit sized hail” blowing out windshields and causing crop damage. And the computer industry just couldn't resist calling Centurion's new grade school math devices “grapefruit sized computers.”
Why did scientists waste so much time trying to come up with the standard definition of an inch when all we had to do is switch to the grapefruit system? Think how all our sayings would improve. Instead of give him an inch and he'll take a mile you would use give him a grapefruit and he'll take a bushel. Much more exciting imagery. Everybody understands the grapefruit system, people enjoy using it, and besides you can't eat an inch.
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