Don't end up like Ffirth

Some people might have seen the link on wikipedia to a fella named Stubbins Ffirth. I think his story is a good illustration of many people's fears. Now, this guy thought it was the shit at medical science, moreover he seemed to have a taste for theatrics. To set his stage, this was a time, late 18th and early 19th centuries, when they were none too sure how yellow fever worked in his day, but they sure as hell knew it was killing a bunch of folks. Anyhow, our man Ffirth was only a trainee doctor, but being a hot shot decided he'd test his theory that yellow fever was non-contagious on himself. To this end, Firth did a great many things to himself involving the vomit of diseased patients, as well as their urine, blood and saliva. He went so far as to eat the vomit to show that the disease wasn't able to spread from person to person. Although certianly putting on a flamboyant spectacle for his contemporaries, he was wrong. As a Cuban would prove later, mosquitoes were the cause of the disease's rapid spread in the summer months. So, as funny as it may seem to us, he spent part of his short life (a mere 36 years) eating the vomit of the diseased to prove a something that in the end was false. Luckily the mosquito link wasn't discovered for decades after his death, otherwise that's be really embarrassing.
However, my point is that, even if you or I don't go so far as to eat the bodily fluids of others, not to mention the sick, we still could devote our lives to something that is rather meaningless in the end despite its appearance otherwise in the present. It's a very scary fact to face up to for me at times, but I suppose there is little less anyone can do but try. And Ffirth did plenty of that, we all must admit.