Dr. Peter J. Weiss

In 1848 gold was dis­cov­ered at Sutter’s Mill in cen­tral Cal­i­for­nia.

The word spread slowly at first, but within a year the Gold Rush was on!  Would-be min­ers flocked to Cal­i­for­nia by the tens of thou­sands.  Vir­tu­ally overnight the state was trans­formed from a nowhere into a land of oppor­tu­nity.

Min­ing work was bru­tally hard and the avail­able food of poor nutri­tional qual­ity. Epi­demics of infec­tious dis­eases were com­mon. Many prospec­tors had only their ruined health to show for years of toil.

The non-native pop­u­la­tion of Cal­i­for­nia rose by over 40-fold from 1846 to 1860.  More than 300,000 immi­grants had arrived to seek their for­tunes.

Now you already know that most of the min­ers didn’t get rich.  Some did of course, but for many, per­haps most, the jour­ney was a bust.  Even if they found a mod­est amount of gold, the inflated local prices pre­vented them from becom­ing rich.

In addi­tion the min­ing work was bru­tally hard and the avail­able food of poor nutri­tional qual­ity.  Epi­demics of infec­tious dis­eases were com­mon.  Many prospec­tors had only their ruined health to show for years of toil.

Com­monly, men who had been bit with the gold bug left jobs and fam­i­lies behind.  These weren’t drifters or “fail­ures” in life.  They were men caught up in a get rich quick men­tal­ity — a belief that they could take a speedy short­cut to vast wealth.

For­get slow and steady progress at home.  The ticket to a bet­ter life was a ticket to Cal­i­for­nia.  After fail­ing to strike it rich, many of these men felt too ashamed to return home to their fam­i­lies and friends and “dis­ap­peared” in Cal­i­for­nia.  It’s sad to think about it.

Not every­one was a loser in this mass money mania.

One man who did strike it rich was Levi Strauss, the inven­tor of blue jeans.  He jour­neyed to San Fran­cisco in 1853, not to prospect for gold, but rather to sell dry goods to the min­ers.

Like other mer­chants, he saw oppor­tu­nity in the prospec­tors and he went for it.  In fact, being a mer­chant was prob­a­bly the best way to get rich dur­ing the Gold Rush, and there was no back­break­ing work needed.  Retail­ers of goods and ser­vices cleaned up com­pared with the gold seek­ers.

Today the masses seek health through health­care.

Let’s find a short­cut to good health — replace a knee, take a pill, stent an artery.

The slow and steady method is not for us.  We’re in love with the idea of high-tech health­care that will save us.

But just as most of the “Miner forty-niners” did not find riches in Cal­i­for­nia, most of today’s patients do not find health from more health­care.  Yet the health­care mer­chants are doing quite well.

Do you think any of the shop­keep­ers of the Cal­i­for­nia Gold Rush met the boys off the boat and told them to go home, get a steady job, marry their sweet­hearts and have a nice life?  Prob­a­bly not.

There’s no money in it.  And truly, the newly minted prospec­tors prob­a­bly wouldn’t have lis­tened any­way.

Will any of today’s health­care mer­chants try to talk you down from your health­care mania?  Will any offer to help you to change your life, to take the slow and steady approach to build­ing health and well­be­ing, to have more health and less care?

Will you lis­ten if they do?