How Medicine Fails Humanity
Added 24 Feb 2012Who’s Delusional?
If someone denies that a thing exists, or that it can even exist, yet refuses to take adequate steps to investigate the possibility of its existence, is this not classical delusional behaviour?
Two all-time classics:
“Of course the sun revolves around the earth. Look at it moving in the sky, you idiot.”
“The earth couldn’t possibly be round. Look at the horizon - it’s flat, you idiot.”
Dermatologists and doctors, take a bow.
The Subversion of Logic
Here’s a(nother) curious medical anomaly:
- Conventional medicine accepts the fact that demodex mites can be found in many different parts of the human body besides the face.
- Conventional medicine accepts the fact that demodex mites can multiply to become an infestation on the human head. This is called demodicosis and cumbersome conventional medical treatments have been devised to treat it.
- Conventional medicine DOES NOT ACCEPT the fact that demodex mites can multiply to become an infestation ANYWHERE ELSE ON THE HUMAN BODY. Conventional medicine calls this “mange,” and maintains that only furred mammals can get it (conveniently forgetting the fact that man is a mammal with modified fur).
Ambitious and Greedy Fools
Remember when they used to burn witches? This is taken from Wikipedia:
German social scientists Gunnar Heinsohn and Otto Steiger theorize that midwifery became a target of persecution and repression by public authorities because midwives not only possessed highly specialized knowledge and skills regarding assisting birth, but also regarding contraception and abortion.[21] According to Heinsohn and Steiger's theory, the state persecuted the midwives as witches in an effort to repopulate the European continent which had suffered severe loss of manpower as a result of the bubonic plague which had swept over the continent in waves, starting in 1348.
Who do you think were the men behind the curtain? Here’s a more recent example, again from Wikipedia:
In the early 20th century, a conflict between surgeons and midwives arose, as medical men began to assert that their modern scientific techniques were better for mothers and infants than the folk medicine practiced by midwives.[17] As doctors and medical associations pushed for a legal monopoly on obstetrical care, midwifery became outlawed or heavily regulated throughout the United States and Canada.[17][18] Despite accusations that midwives were "incompetent and ignorant",[19] some argued that poorly trained surgeons were far more of a danger to pregnant women.
For almost 200 years, puerperal fever was known as “The Doctor’s Plague.” Once again from Wikipedia:
From the 1600s through the mid to late 1800s, the majority of childbed fever cases were caused by the doctors themselves. With no knowledge of germs, doctors did not believe hand washing was needed. Statements like Dr. Charles Meigs', a leading obstetrician and teacher from Philadelphia: “Doctors are gentlemen, and gentleman’s hands are clean”, were the attitude of the time.[1] In the 1800s Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis noticed that women giving birth at home had a much lower incidence of childbed fever than those giving birth in the doctor's maternity ward.
His investigation discovered that washing hands with an antiseptic solution before a delivery reduced childbed fever fatalities by 90%.[2] Despite the publication of this information, doctors still would not wash. The idea conflicted with both the existing medical concepts and more importantly, with the image that doctors had of themselves. That intransigence consigned large numbers of mothers to painful, lingering deaths.[3] The scorn and ridicule of doctors was so extreme that Semmelweis moved from Vienna and was eventually committed to a mental asylum where he died.[4]
Dr. Semmelweis was not the only doctor ignored after sounding a warning about this issue: in Treatise on the Epidemic of Puerperal Fever (1795), ex-naval surgeon and Aberdonian accoucheur Dr. Alexander Gordon warned that the disease was transmitted from one case to another by midwives and doctors. Dr. Gordon wrote, "It is a disagreeable declaration for me to mention, that I myself was the means of carrying the infection to a great number of women."[5]
The similarity between the resistance of that time with the resistance of today's doctors when faced with concepts like "using checklists"[6] or "evidence-based medicine" is alarming and has caused some speculation that the actual problem originates in the ego focus that prevails in the culture of doctoring.
I won’t even go into how difficult it was for Joseph Lister to convince his medical colleagues of the importance of antisepsis in surgery. No, most of them considered their “surgical stink” to be badges of their prowess and status.
The truth is that the history of science and medicine is littered with such examples of now discredited nonsense propagated by ambitious fools, which were the accepted dogma of their day (and I use the word “dogma” quite deliberately here).
Psychiatry - could Scientology be right?
Psychiatry is a soft science. This means that, unlike the hard sciences, it is NOT characterized as relying on quantifiable empirical data or the scientific method, or focusing on accuracy and objectivity. Personally, I believe it’s basically gobbledygook. I only ever met one good honest one, and he told me that psychiatrists couldn’t really help anyone - with anything.
Consequently, you can now find rubbish like this and others appearing on the internet which “proves” that reports of human insect infestations are mass delusions caused by (wait for it)... the internet!
Really, such people are completely unacquainted with the concept of shame (or, indeed, any trace of wit or intelligence).
Although I personally have no time for Scientology, I can see now that L. Ron Hubbard may have been right when he said that psychiatry was essentially evil.
Trivia
Sir William Osler, one of the greatest physicians, humanitarians, and teachers of the 19th century, taught that “Medicine is learned by the bedside and not in the classroom.”
In other words, the greatest learning resource a doctor could possibly have is his patients.
But when was the last time a doctor really listened to you?
Most of them won’t even use the internet, something they loathe because it has empowered patients by arming them with knowledge.
No, the only things they’re prepared to read are the handouts they get from the pharmaceutical company reps.