Who was Dr. Charles Campbell?

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http://www.proliberty.com/observer/20020811.htm

 

 

From the August 2002 Idaho Observer:

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Who was Dr. Charles Campbell? Why has modern organized medicine forgotten

his work?

 

by Walene James

 

Around 1900, the cause and control of two life threatening diseases was

discovered, each by two distinguished medical doctors. One is famous. His

name is in encyclopedias and textbooks. About 60 years ago, a movie

heralding his discovery was made and a hospital was named after him.

 

The other doctor is practically unknown. I know of only one book written

about his discovery and that, as far as I know, is out-of-print. In my

opinion, his contribution was the more remarkable because he discovered the

cause and cure of a disfiguring disease that has plagued mankind for

thousands of years.

 

Doctor #1: Walter Reed

 

Walter Reed is the doctor first mentioned and the hospital named after him

is the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

 

In 1900, he headed a commission to investigate the cause of yellow fever,

which, along with malaria, was the main obstacle to completing the work on

the Panama Canal. He and a medical staff carried on a series of experiments

involving several doctors as well as a number of soldiers who volunteered

to be infected by the yellow fever virus. Two died as a result, but the

experiments established that the aedes aegypti mosquito transmits yellow

fever. Walter Reed and his team said that the best control was to kill the

mosquitoes.

 

However, isn't it better to eliminate the conditions that create a disease,

rather than merely controlling it? In 1904, army surgeon William Crawford

Gorgas was sent to Panama where he instituted sanitary reforms, cut back

the brush and drained the swamps which were the breeding grounds of the

mosquito. In two years he succeeded in eliminating yellow fever from the

canal region. Outbreaks of malaria, a disease that was transmitted by the

anopheles mosquito, was also brought under control using Dr. Gorgas' methods.

 

Doctor #2: Charles A. R. Campbell

 

The second doctor, Charles A. R. Campbell, discovered the cause and cure of

smallpox. Through a series of carefully controlled experiments (even using

himself as a subject) Dr. Campbell, along with Dr. J. A. Watts, discovered

that smallpox, like yellow fever and malaria, was transmitted by an insect,

cimex lectularius (Latin for bedbug). They also discovered that the disease

was neither contagious nor infectious and that vaccinations did not prevent

it. In fact, Dr. Campbell that from his own patient records, smallpox

vaccination showed an 80 percent fail rate.

 

Even more importantly, Dr. Campbell discovered that the severity of the

disease was directly proportional to the general ill health and

malnutrition of the patient. He spoke of " scorbutic cachexia " and related

it to scurvy, the " disease caused by lack of green food. " He said, " the

removal of this perversion of nutrition will so mitigate the virulence of

this malady as to positively prevent the pitting or pocking of smallpox. "

(Bacteria, Inc., Cash Asher, Bruce Humphries, Inc., Boston, MA, 1949).

 

Even though Drs. Campbell and Watts and possibly others tried to publish

their findings, their work was ignored. However, it was Dr. Campbell who

first called attention to the bedbug as the carrier of smallpox. I might

mention that Dr. Campbell was recognized as an outstanding scientist of his

generation, even being nominated for the Nobel Prize for his work on the

value of bats as mosquito eradicators. Today he is all but forgotten. Few

have heard of him and now smallpox is considered highly contagious and

dangerous with no known cure.

 

Why is one doctor honored and the other ignored?

 

When cimex lectularius was exposed as the carrier of smallpox, the

manufacturing of serums had grown into a profitable industry and smallpox

vaccinations had become a lucrative part of medical practice. The

vaccination of every child had become an established practice. Many states

had laws making vaccinations compulsory for school entrance requirements.

When the cause and control of yellow fever was discovered, the vaccine for

it had not been developed (It was developed in 1937).

 

Perhaps even more economically threatening was Dr. Campbell's assertion

that a change in diet, not drugs or vaccines, could prevent the pocking or

pitting of smallpox, even mitigating the severity of the disease.

 

For your consideration: Economics run organized medicine, not the desire to

ameliorate the conditions conducive to human suffering. Is history written

by those in power to reinforce their position of power? Do you think this

brief description of two different outcomes for two discoveries made about

the same time is an isolated example?

 

For further research: Could the nutritional principal discovered by Dr.

Campbell be applied to other insect-borne diseases, thus mitigating their

severity?