Shahar Madjar, MD, Journal columnist

EDITOR’S NOTE: This material was originally published in The Mining Journal on February 14, 2017.

Necessity is the mother of frugality: without the means to live large, one has to live on less, and to own little. But for many, I have noticed, frugality has become a fashionable choice: Some people choose to abandon the American dream and live in a tiny cabin in the wilderness, while others limit their ‘stuff’ to a carefully selected collection of 15 items that can fit in a backpack.

In his book, “The Wisdom of Frugality: Why Less is More — More or Less,” Emrys Westacott, a professor of philosophy at Alfred University of New York, informs his readers that the idea of frugality was examined by thinkers from Socrates to Thoreau, many of whom found frugality and simple living to be liberating — a practice associated with wisdom, integrity and happiness. Professor Westacott’s book, 328 pages in hard cover, is $27.95 before tax and shipping — the frugal mind would be wise to wait for the paperback edition.

Whether out of necessity or fashion, scientists, engineers and doctors are also looking for ways to apply frugality to everyday medicine.

The $1 origami microscope, for example, is a diagnostic marvel. Its inventor, Manu Parkash at Stanford University in California and his colleagues designed a microscope made of paper with a print-in lens. The device is nicknamed the Foldscope. Like in Origami, where a three dimensional figure of a bird or a boat can be folded from a sheet of paper, the Foldscope can be quickly assembled from a flat sheet of paper.

It allows over 2,000 times magnification with impressive resolution. The Foldscope is light, fits in a pocket and requires no external electrical power. It is resilient: in a TED talk video, the inventor himself steps on his Foldoscope with full force, yet the Foldscope prevails.

The Foldscope would fill the frugal heart with joy: it is made of a paper frame, a tiny lens ($0.56), a small battery ($0.06), a light source ($0.21), a piece of tape and a switch, with a total cost of $0.97. Using the Foldscope, one can see microscopic life — bacteria such as E. Coli, and parasites such as Giardia lamblia — in great detail.

Meanwhile, a group of researchers from Sweden and Uganda tested a frugal approach to the treatment of patients with a groin hernia – a weakness in the abdominal wall at the groin area that allows the intestine, for example, to bulge through it.

The researchers divided a group of 302 patients with a groin hernia into two groups. Four experienced surgeons (two Swedish, two Ugandan) performed a hernia repair in all patients. They used mesh material to bolster the defect in the abdominal wall in all patients. One of the groups received the usual medical-grade polypropylene mesh (which costs $125 in Uganda). The other group received a polypropylene mesh that was similar in its mechanical properties to the mesh used in the first group. It was much less expensive, though, or less than $1, to be exact, for it was never intended for medical purposes but rather to serve as a mosquito net.

The results of the Swedish-Ugandan experiment would fill the frugal heart with joy: both groups, those who received the medical-grade mesh and the low-cost mesh had similar rates of success, and low rates of complications.

Should doctors go frugal? For a moment, in my mind, I pictured my fellow doctors of orthopedic surgery shopping at Home Depot for drillers and saws, nails and screws. And I trembled, briefly, at the thought that I, too, for the sake of frugality, would have to surrender the medical-grade catheters I use on my patients for small-caliber plastic tubes made to satisfy the taste of real plumbers.

Frugality, of course, will not take over Western medicine anytime soon, nor will it take over any other aspect of our life. We could live in a tiny cabin in the wilderness but the average home in the US is 2,349 square feet. We could limit our “stuff’ to 15 carefully selected items, yet our garages and attics are filled to the hilt. We could, theoretically, drive a Tata nano ($3,056) but in reality, we prefer the comfort and safety of larger cars.

Frugality is a hard sell primarily because we have a choice. And when my time comes to need medical care, rein in your frugality and equip my doctors with a standard light microscope, and avoid, at all cost, the mosquito net.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Dr. Shahar Madjar is a urologist at Aspirus and the author of “Is Life Too Long? Essays about Life, Death and Other Trivial Matters.” Contact him at smadjar@yahoo.com.