NEW ORTHODOXIES: X

WHY I DON'T FEEL WELL

Anthony Daniels examines

the wishful thinking behind alternative medicine

AROUND the year 1900, according to some historians of the subject, a momen- tous change came over the practice of medicine: for the first time a visit to the doctor was as likely to be beneficial as harmful. According to the same historians, another such change occurred 30 years later. At long last doctors had a statistically unequivocal chance of doing their patients more good than harm.

These momentous changes went un- noticed, however, for the popularity of medicine had never depended on its effica- cy. People had been bled and purged for hundreds of years without detecting the absurdity of these treatments. Exquisite were the torments inflicted on patients in the name of therapy, yet providing they were prescribed with authority and brio, they were submitted to gladly.

Paradoxically, it is only as medicine has become more firmly scientific that people have begun to question its value and even turn their backs on it. Every Sunday newspaper carries stories of medical malfeasance, new diseases which medicine cannot cure, or dangerous side-effects of commonly prescribed drugs. Furthermore, there is a revulsion against the mechanistic premises of modern medicine. People want to be treated as `whole' human beings, not just as broken legs, failing kidneys and so forth. They are turning increasingly to alternative medicine which, as everyone knows, is wholesome, natural, effective and cheap. Who does not know of a chronic case of something or other who, having found no relief from orthodox medicine, has been cured at once by a naturopath, acupuncturist, homeopath, vedic practitioner, chiropractor, herbalist, spiritual healer, reflexologist or other fringe practitioner?

Even doctors are losing their nerve. For fear of appearing intolerant or arrogant, they are beginning to accord alternative medicine new respect, on the grounds that forty million Frenchmen can't be wrong. They forget their own history.

The scale of the intellectual effort re- quired to give medicine as scientific a basis as some of it now enjoys is insufficiently realised. Every schoolboy knows, for ex- ample, that malaria is caused by a micros- copic parasite spread by the bite of a certain genus of mosquito; but few appreci- ate the years of painstaking endeavour it took to make this vital discovery from a position of ignorance. More importantly, the liberating effect of a naturalistic atti- tude towards disease is not emphasised, for cultural relativism is all the rage: if tribal Africans believe infectious diseases are caused by evil spirits, their views are to be given equal weight with those of micro- biologists.

The efforts of the great pathologists and bacteriologists of the 19th century, howev- er, did no more than lay the foundations for the scientific practice of medicine. They made it possible but not inevitable. One has only to read medical textbooks pub- lished before the second world war to appreciate first that doctors were even then powerless against many of the diseases which we are now able to take lightly, and secondly that their prescriptions (of diet, inhalations, ointments, bed rest and so forth) were often without any scientific basis whatsoever. Indeed, reading the con- fident assertions of the much-honoured and fashionable physicians of the time, it is clear they did not understand the need for scientific validation in the first place. They regarded their raw, unstructured but ten- thousand-fold experience as quite suffi- cient in itself.

Only very late in the day has it been understood that to prove the efficacy of a treatment is actually quite difficult and not a matter of mere reflection on the cases one has seen. A treatment has to be compared with the natural outcome of the disease, or another treatment of known efficacy. Furthermore, the strong placebo effect has to be taken into account and methods devised for distinguishing be- tween this effect and the true effect of the treatment under investigation.

Let me illustrate the point. When I worked in the Gilbert Islands, I found a widespread belief that the local traditional healers were especially skilled in treating jaundice. The reason for this was not difficult to discern. The commonest cause of jaundice in the islands was infectious hepatitis, which was very common indeed. It is known that at least 99 per cent of cases of infectious hepatitis resolve spontaneous- ly; but since nearly every case in the Gilbert Islands was treated by a traditional healer, it was believed the local medicine was highly effective.

The great majority of ailments that afflict mankind are similarly self-limiting. Furthermore, many of them are suscepti- ble to suggestion. It would be very surpris- ing, therefore, if there were a method of treatment that was not able to claim its successes. It would have to be positively murderous to fail completely.

Alternative medicine is not, on the whole, troubled by such intellectual scru- ples. The evidence in its favour is still the testimonial and the anecdote.

To read books written by alternative therapists is to regress to the 18th century, or beyond. I went to an 'alternative book- shop', where I found an entire section devoted to alternative medicine. (It was opposite Black Women's Writing and near Radical Politics — that is to say, Chile, South Africa and Nicaragua. Is there, I wonder, some psychological connection between these disparate subjects?) Brows- ing, I soon discovered the basic tenets common to most alternative therapies.

First, modern industrial society is un- natural and therefore uniquely unhealthy: 'We pollute ourselves and our surround- ings, and in consequence suffer from dis- ease. . . .' It is entirely overlooked that, from the point of view of life expectancy and freedom from epidemic disease, mod- ern industrial society, whatever its other problems, is the healthiest that has ever existed.

Second, orthodox medicine has failed: 'The man in the street is becoming more and more discontented with drug therapy and conscious that it leaves much to be desired.' There is here a complete failure to understand that knowledge is always provisional, and however much is known, there will always be much left to be desired. Systems which claim full and final knowledge are charlatanry.

Third, orthodox medicine does not heal 'the whole man', unlike alternative medi- cine. 'The basis . is rational in that it treats the whole man . . and there are no side-effects.' The whole man is here an unproblematical concept. Neither is it ex- plained how advances are to be secured once the analytical methods of science are abandoned. It is assumed also that some- where within the phenomenal man — the man who pays his mortgage, the man who shouts at his wife — there is the True Man who, like God, is without attributes.

I chose two books at random from among the hundreds available. (It does not seem to worry devotees of alternative medicine that the multifarious theories are mutually contradictory). The first was a short guide to homeopathy, now in its third impression.

We are treated to an exposition of the Law of Similars, upon which the whole system rests. The founder of homeopathy, Hahnemann, discovered that quinine, a cure for malaria, could produce in a healthy man symptoms not dissimilar from those of malaria itself (the considerable differences are not mentioned). From this, he jumped to the strange conclusion that any substance which produced symptoms reminiscent of a disease would cure that disease. He also discovered that the more dilute a substance, the greater its effect, since more of its 'energy' had entered the solvent.

We go on to learn about the Miasms, Psora, Syphilis and Sycosis. Psora is quite serious:

[it] has, through the centuries, polluted the human bloodstream through hereditary transmission. . . . Psora is invisible. . . . Suppression by application of ointments, the use of x-rays, etc . . . has forced it inwards . . . . Psora, in fact, affects every function and has numerous stomach and bowel symp- toms. . . . The patient is always hungry . . . he craves sweet things and sour things . . . [he] often suffers spots before the vision . . . . The face often has a triangular appear- ance . . . [he] dislikes washing . . . he quite happily endures dirty shirts.

When a sufferer from Psora misguidedly unites with a sufferer from Syphilis (eccen- trically defined) the outcome is tubercu- losis.

As for smallpox vaccination: [it] is the father of. . . erysipelas, impetigo, psoriasis, morbelliform rashes, some forms of gangrene, erythemas, roseola, papular and pustular eruptions . . . urticaria, ecze- ma, dermatitis . . . lupus vulgaris and many others.

There is no mention, naturally, of the elimination of smallpox from the world.

The second half of this instructive work is devoted to case histories. A Backward Girl, I Don't Feel Well, Difficulty in Walking, Headaches, Almost a Nervous Breakdown, Skin Trouble on the Hands, Back Trouble, A Case of Dirty Unmanage- able Boy, Misshapen Head etc., all succes- ses for homeopathy, some dating back to the 19th century.

Finally, we are reminded that George V was very keen on homeopathy.

Turning now to The Seven Levels of Healing, one derives much useful if surpris- ing information: 'It is not generally under- stood that the power of healing manifests in different rays which correspond directly to the rainbow.' The red ray, or vibration, . . draws poisons, builds up red corpus- cles, stimulates arteries, sluggish menstrual discharge and the autonomic nervous sys- tem'. For those suffering from a lack of vitality . . a simple remedy is to wear red underclothes'. The purple ray on the other hand 'is good for headaches and for some people can be a slimming aid'.

There is interesting anatomical informa- tion too:

Seven vital centres are stituated down the spine from the top of the head to the sacrum and are known as chakras. These seven main chakras are attached to the spine by cords which have roots and the general appearance is that of flowers. . . . At the core of every chakra is a black and white hole. . .

At first sight it is curious that people who reject orthodox medicine, with its compa- ratively powerful intellectual infrastruc- ture, should accept uncritically such a farrago of nonsense. But alternative medi- cine appeals to the millenarian and the messianic in modern man, which is not otherwise catered for. It is the search for certainty (Happiness is Junk-Free Food, according to the title of one book) in an uncertain world. It is displaced religion.

I do not say that herbalists and others do not effect genuine cures; only that, to prove it, they will have to adopt the procedures of orthodox medicine. In doing so they will lose their attraction. Alterna- tive medicine is not worthy of the fashion- able respect it receives.