The great divide is between the well and the sick – as we’re all learning | Nick Cohen

It's only when we run out of luck that we comprehend how precarious life can be

Speaking to parliament in 1855 as the carnage of the Crimean war grew, the radical MP John Bright produced an imperishable image. "The angel of death has been abroad throughout the land, you may almost hear the beating of his wings."

Death's wings are beating countless millions towards the world of the sick today. You may enter full of confidence. You may think good health is like a car, and a hospital is a garage where you can park your malfunctioning body for the professionals to fix. Your confidence comes from the luck of living in an advanced scientific society with history's longest life expectancy and highest living standards. The world of the sick teaches you to dispense with certainties. You discover that your condition, or in my case the condition of someone you love, which seemed a temporary malfunction, is incurable or is possibly incurable, for no one really knows.