Nature, Truth and Modern Medicine

[Guest guest]

as posted in The Best Years in Life

 

 

Nature, Truth and Modern Medicine

 

 

Although forever changing, the truth of nature never changes and the nature of truth itself does not change. The nature of mainstream

medicine on the other hand changes constantly and what is considered

the truth today as espoused by the demi-gods of mainsteam medicine

often becomes the discredited quackery of the blood-letters of tomorrow.

 

Western society, science and medicine have a very long tradition of

wrongly looking down their noses at other societies, other science and

natural approaches to healing the entire body instead of treating

symptoms.

 

For example, Chinese medicine has a history of over 6,000 years and it

treats the patient by focusing on preventing disease in the first place

by keeping the entire body healthy in every way, mind, vitality,

energy, immune system, etc. Modern medicine still looks down it's nose

at Chinese medicine, just as it does other natural forms of medicine

and treatment, and just as I did before I learned better. Of course,

from the time western man met the Chinese until this very day, we have

looked at their culture and their medicine as backwards. It might be

pointed out that when we first met the Chinese, we didn't believe in

frequent baths, were ridden with body lice, hung our butchered fowls

out to "cure" and used leeches to bleed patients. Yet we looked down

at a people that bathed daily and kept meticulously clean, ate their

meat fresh and had invented things like gunpowder centuries before we

had a clue

 

Let's take a look at western medicine's "modern" medicine about the

same time we met the Chinese and how it attempted to treat King Charles

II in 1685:

"The

king was bled to the extent of a pint from a vein in his right arm.

Next, his shoulder was cut into and the incised area was sucked of an

additional 8 oz of blood. An emetic and a purgative were administered,

followed by a second purgative, followed by an enema containing

antimone, sacred bitters, rock salt, mallow leaves, violets, beetroot,

camomile flowers, fennel seeds, linseed, cinnamon, cardamom seed,

saffron, cochineal and aloes. The king's scalp was shaved and a blister

raised. A sneezing powder of hellebore was administered. A plaster of

burgundy pitch and pigeon dung was applied to the feet. Medicaments

included melon seeds, manna, slippery elm, black cherry water, lime

flowers, lily of the valley, peony, lavender and dissolved pearls. As

he grew worse, forty drops of extract of human skull were administered,

followed by a rallying dose of Raleigh's antidote. Finally, bezoar

stone was given."Curiously,

his Majesty's strength seemed to wane after all these interventions

and, as the end of his life seemed imminent, his doctors tried a

last-ditch attempt by forcing more Raleigh's mixture, pearl julep and

ammonia down the dying king's throat. Further treatment was rendered

more difficult by the king's death."

 

We can be sure that the physicians gathered around the king's bed were

all leaders in their particular field--royalty and presidents do not

settle for anything less. But, as Proust observed, with hindsight we

can now see the hideous error of their therapeutics. Today, the skull

drops, the ammonia and the pigeon dung have long gone, but what will we

say in a few years' time when we look back on the "highly respected"

slash, radiate and poison cancer therapies of 2007?

 

Do you think history will judge us any more kindly?

Tony"The doctor of the future will give no medicine but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, in diet and in the cause and prevention of disease."- Thomas Edison

 

sources: "Death by Doctoring" www.nexusmagazine.com/articles/doctoring1.html