on the winter solstice, thought i'd spend a little time on this topic
since my comment on non carborundum's assertion about medicine was too long to fit, i thought i'd repost it here as a new thread.
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there are several reasons to believe allopathy is not the ultimate answer. but i will start with just one word: "thalidomide".
this was supposed to be a harmless allopathic drug that would help women combat morning sickness. well, it turned out that it caused them to deliver horribly deformed babies -- some with brain damage, some without heads, and so on. the issue of unexpected side effects is always there with allopathy (with ayurveda also, but there it is less likely because ayurveda is based on centuries of acute observation, unlike in the case of new allopathic drugs invented last week by pfizer or somebody).
so allopathy is quite a bit about trial and error, and what is allopathic dogma today may well become allopathic laughing-stock tomorrow. a more current issue is that of prostate tests (and similarly mammograms). it has been dogma for some years that all men must undergo expensive, intrusive and not-more-than-35-percent effective surgical and other means to combat prostate cancer -- with side-effects including loss of bladder control and impotence. and lo and behold, this year comes a medical advisory board's finding that you should leave prostate cancer alone -- almost always you will die of other reasons before you die of prostate cancer, which is particularly slow-moving, and the alleged cure is worse than the disease!
so i think of allopathic medicine as something akin to the work of a car mechanic -- you try something, hope it works; if it doesn't, try something else. you have hypotheses, but you don't necessarily have an infallible answer. it is hardly a science, but more trial and error than anything else.
and non carborundum makes a cardinal error in confusing 'correlation' with 'causation'. this is the first issue. most of the so-called 'science' in allopathy is about statistics. but the fact that something is statistically correlated does not necessarily mean there is a causal relationship. one example: those with high cholesterol and high blood sugars are statistically more likely to develop cancer, but nobody can explain why.
secondly, there is a tendency in allopathy -- as in western science in general -- to use a descartian approach of reduction to the smallest element. which means they keep on trying to find the mechanical 'root cause' of every illness -- which totally ignores the issue that a human is not a robot. the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. in other words, you can't build a human simply by assembling all the raw materials in your body and saying "ok, now be a human" (sort of like the frankenstein monster). that intangible life force is still mysterious -- allopathy cannot explain it.
this was supposed to be a harmless allopathic drug that would help women combat morning sickness. well, it turned out that it caused them to deliver horribly deformed babies -- some with brain damage, some without heads, and so on. the issue of unexpected side effects is always there with allopathy (with ayurveda also, but there it is less likely because ayurveda is based on centuries of acute observation, unlike in the case of new allopathic drugs invented last week by pfizer or somebody).
so allopathy is quite a bit about trial and error, and what is allopathic dogma today may well become allopathic laughing-stock tomorrow. a more current issue is that of prostate tests (and similarly mammograms). it has been dogma for some years that all men must undergo expensive, intrusive and not-more-than-35-percent effective surgical and other means to combat prostate cancer -- with side-effects including loss of bladder control and impotence. and lo and behold, this year comes a medical advisory board's finding that you should leave prostate cancer alone -- almost always you will die of other reasons before you die of prostate cancer, which is particularly slow-moving, and the alleged cure is worse than the disease!
so i think of allopathic medicine as something akin to the work of a car mechanic -- you try something, hope it works; if it doesn't, try something else. you have hypotheses, but you don't necessarily have an infallible answer. it is hardly a science, but more trial and error than anything else.
and non carborundum makes a cardinal error in confusing 'correlation' with 'causation'. this is the first issue. most of the so-called 'science' in allopathy is about statistics. but the fact that something is statistically correlated does not necessarily mean there is a causal relationship. one example: those with high cholesterol and high blood sugars are statistically more likely to develop cancer, but nobody can explain why.
secondly, there is a tendency in allopathy -- as in western science in general -- to use a descartian approach of reduction to the smallest element. which means they keep on trying to find the mechanical 'root cause' of every illness -- which totally ignores the issue that a human is not a robot. the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. in other words, you can't build a human simply by assembling all the raw materials in your body and saying "ok, now be a human" (sort of like the frankenstein monster). that intangible life force is still mysterious -- allopathy cannot explain it.
thirdly, there is the strange phenomenon that your mind has such an impact on your health. if someone says "i always catch a cold in the winter", they are much more likely to catch cold, even though this person and another who doesn't believe this are exposed to the same virus. similarly, the placebo effect: most of the time, the body cures itself. it is your belief that the alleged drug is fixing you that gets your body to fix itself.
this is a big argument i have had in general with friends, about science vs. religion. science in general has its own dogmas and axioms, and you have to believe too. for instance, for a long time scientists believed absolutely in newtonian physics, which now looks quaint and foolish compared to quantum mechanics. but scientists believed in newtonian physics with absolute faith -- almost exactly the same as the absolute blind faith religious people have in god. i have claimed that 'science' is yet another religion that believes in certain things it claims can be 'proven'. but remember that the church had 'proved' 'scientifically' through complex epicycles and such that the earth was indeed the center of the universe. what happened to all that 'proof'? they in fact could explain all the movements of the visible planets using their complex schemes, but nevertheless they were still wrong.
at the root of all this is that magnificent idea called 'the uncertainty principle'. there is a limit to what you know and what you could possibly know. allopathy bangs its head ahead this wall, and has the vanity that it will lead us to *know* everything. it couldn't possibly succeed. it never will. therefore, allopathy shall forever remain at best a flawed model of reality.
there is no reason to believe that the underlying model of ayurveda -- which is that there is a certain 'balance' between different forces (vata, pitta, kapha) that needs to be maintained in equilibrium -- is any less or more valid than the cartesian vanity of allopathy. to be honest, though, i find it hard to find a similarly acceptable and satisfying model of homeopathy. so, for chronic disease, i think there is as much -- or more -- reason to seek ayurvedic cures as allopathic. one brilliant example is the use by dean ornish of ayurvedic regimens to reverse heart disease (which allopathic dogma had held was impossible -- you could only arrest it, never reverse it, they said).
allopathy, on the other hand, is quite good at acute disease. if your appendix bursts, or you need a tumor cut off, hey, allopathy is good.
the sum total is -- ok, you allopathic doctors can go ahead and beat me up now -- allopathy is good tactically (the car mechanic analog) but not as good strategically (fix long-term issues) as many people believe. allopathic dogma -- and general scientific dogma -- does not have any more validity than religious dogma.
23 comments:
Super article! But to be fair to noncarborundum, you could have added couple of sentences on reiki, coffee enema and acupuncture... There are quacks everywhere, and alternative medicine seem to have an overdose of it! But the answer is NOT to debunk all forms of alternative medicines but invest money in research and documentation of these disciplines and at the same time, bring in stricter guidelines of registration, mandatory testing of medicines for heavy metals, etc. and leave the rest to the believers!
Hi Rajeev, please see the hard-hitting article in the Globe and Mail: Solve the Pakistan problem by redrawing the map
Allopathy keeps contradicting itself every few decades. The Human body is a mini-Universe and will remain a mystery forever. Please take the time to read items 1 and 4 at this link:
13 things that make no sense
4 Belfast homeopathy results
MADELEINE Ennis, a pharmacologist at Queen's University, Belfast, was the scourge of homeopathy. She railed against its claims that a chemical remedy could be diluted to the point where a sample was unlikely to contain a single molecule of anything but water, and yet still have a healing effect. Until, that is, she set out to prove once and for all that homeopathy was bunkum.
In her most recent paper, Ennis describes how her team looked at the effects of ultra-dilute solutions of histamine on human white blood cells involved in inflammation. These "basophils" release histamine when the cells are under attack. Once released, the histamine stops them releasing any more. The study, replicated in four different labs, found that homeopathic solutions - so dilute that they probably didn't contain a single histamine molecule - worked just like histamine. Ennis might not be happy with the homeopaths' claims, but she admits that an effect cannot be ruled out.
So how could it happen? Homeopaths prepare their remedies by dissolving things like charcoal, deadly nightshade or spider venom in ethanol, and then diluting this "mother tincture" in water again and again. No matter what the level of dilution, homeopaths claim, the original remedy leaves some kind of imprint on the water molecules. Thus, however dilute the solution becomes, it is still imbued with the properties of the remedy.
You can understand why Ennis remains sceptical. And it remains true that no homeopathic remedy has ever been shown to work in a large randomised placebo-controlled clinical trial. But the Belfast study (Inflammation Research, vol 53, p 181) suggests that something is going on. "We are," Ennis says in her paper, "unable to explain our findings and are reporting them to encourage others to investigate this phenomenon." If the results turn out to be real, she says, the implications are profound: we may have to rewrite physics and chemistry.
Thalidomide is too old an example.
How about BSE/ Mad Cow Disease? Direct product of scientifically feeding animals with the own flesh and offal ground into pellets?
How about GM crops? Animals grazing near these field avoid eating these foods!
Allopathy is basically "lets' put these things together and see what happens".
To praise it is pathetic.
The FDA aids and abets big companies repeatedly; it is less and less scientific.
There exists reams of literature on this stuff.
My answer is a long one too.
Scientific theories are continually modified or discarded. Scientific theories must be proven through reasoning and experiment. In the words of philosopher John Dewey, scientific theories promulgate “warranted assertability” and not “truth” which is absolute. This is not a dogmatic system. Religious and other beliefs are dogmatic - these are held on to for thousands of years. There are only scientific theories, not beliefs.
There are two types of research approaches that are used to establish theories – deductive and inductive (“trial and error”). The scientific technique uses both wherever possible, but in different sciences one or the other prevails. In fundamental physics, the deductive approach is more important due to the inability to experimentally verify many theories. In social sciences, inductive approaches are used more along with deductive reasoning.
The fiasco with Thalidomide can be explained by either or both of
(a) More factors needed to be considered before rolling out the drug
(b) A longer trial period with larger sample size was needed.
This is a failure of the, respectively, deductive and/or inductive research methodology that was followed in this particular case and not a failure of scientific technique itself. Reasons, may be corporate greed or lack of thoroughness or a combination.
If you can give an example of Thalodomide, then I give you the example of Panchagavyam – a wonderful substance made from the five excretions of a cow. The pleasant ones are milk, ghee, and curd which I also like to consume. The unpleasant ones are dung, and urine. Then you have the very dangerous use of mercury in Ayurvedic preparations. On Homeopathy, what can I say? I have nothing against plain water, but there is a stark opportunity cost of not availing effective treatments and settling for this impotent “alternative”. Examine these closely – these are all dogmas, many of them unchallenged because people have not bothered.
Allopathy is both about deductive reasoning and trial and error. Allopathy, as a modern social science is continually improving and learning. The errors of the past that you mention are discovered through scientific technique itself. New drugs and treatments are discovered. Many are rolled back. Does this happen in religion, especially Semitic ones, alternative medicine or in disciplines not subjected to scientific rigour? Oh…I get it…perhaps there is no need because these are never wrong.
The corrupt motives of organizations, for instance drug companies, agro-companies, UNFCC (global warming voodoo science) etc. are not a commentary on scientific technique.
I do not confuse correlation with causation. If data mining establishes correlation, then it can be a starting point for research; but causation is established deductively. If a theory is arrived at deductively, it is tested experimentally wherever possible. If someone comes up to you and says that children with larger feet have higher IQ, then one would not jump to statistically test that theory; but would rather examine what may be the underlying reason; in this case larger feet correspond to higher age, and therefore higher IQ. Causality analysis is part of statistics (e.g. Granger Causality Analysis) and data is analysed for other underlying factors, and other possible aberrations such as heteroskadisticity, unit roots etc. (search these terms).
Contd...
...Contd...
Allopathic medicine or any other scientific discipline is hardly like the work of a car mechanic. Human anatomy, biological reactions, DNA structure and so on are all studied to arrive at reasons and cures for diseases. This is supplemented with experiments and trials. It is about as complete an analysis as we can get now. It will improve over time and many of the scientific truths or rather “warranted assertabilities” of today will be replaced in the future. If your general practitioner that you consult approaches his profession like a car mechanic does then the problem is with his practice and not all theory.
The uncertainty principle, Godel’s incompleteness theorem, statistics/probability all acknowledge related concepts of elements of chance at the microlevel. (Again, look these up.) However, elements of chance operate at the microlevel, not the macrolevel. Newtonian physics is fully in use even in the design of the most sophisticated machinery, vehicles, rockets, missiles etc. The reason we use statistical approaches in the social sciences is not because of the element of chance, but rather because data available is incomplete and factors are too numerous.
One uses different theories to explain different phenomena. Einstein tried to develop a Unified Field Theory to explain “everything”. Godel’s incompleteness theorem establishes that that is not possible and any system of logic will eventually contradict itself. So at some level, science will always operate in a fractured way. E.g. light will sometimes be explained as a wave (diffraction) and sometimes as a particle (photoelectric effect). It certainly cannot be explained as both at the same time. While such disconnects in theories may be resolved to some extent, they will never go away.
We cannot perceive reality as we do today without reductionism. It is that simple. The only thing that can be done is to consider as many factors as possible and as many interactions between those factors to get as close to the truth as possible.
“…intangible life force is still mysterious -- allopathy cannot explain it.”
Tell that to Craig Venter whose team has synthesized living organisms. My position on this is that life forms are incredibly complex (again a relative term, because we are life forms and therefore are likely to be dazzled by our own complexity), but not really “special” in any way. They are incredibly complex because they have about 5 billion years of evolutionary power behind them. No question of any “life force”. That is a non-verifiable assertion where the burden of proof lies with the assertor.
As a parting thought, a question to San: Swimmers who cross the English Channel fart into the ocean; does that mother tincture leave an imprint in our drinking water too?
Non Carborundum,
Some of the path breaking ideasof allopathy came from ayurveda. For example, germ theory. Another example is inocultion (vaccination is nothing but a minor variation of this and even that was plagiarized by Jenner).
See JZ Holwell's paper on inoculation in India in 1767. That paper describes the Hindus as believing in germ theory and Holwell dismisses the theory.
@Arvind
1. "Germ theory" — It is a bit of an exaggeration to give credit to Atharva Veda. Germ Theory of Disease has its origins in the refutation of the concept of spontaneous generation. It gained enormous strength from the work of Anton van Leeuwenhoek on microscopy. You might like to read Stephen T. Abedon’s lecture, for example.
2. "inocultion" [sic] What was being practiced in India was not vaccination (vide infra), but what is called "variolation", which consisted of scraping out the scabs from smallpox skin lesions, drying and letting it age for some time, and then using it for infecting healthy people. Variolation might have originated in India (not established beyond doubt), but it was being practiced in China, and even in Britain. In any case, it cannot be called a scientific method, but was something akin to folk medicine — like using castor oil as a cathartic, or oil of wintergreen for relieving pain. Jenner, in contrast, used the infective agent of cowpox, vaccinia, from which the word vaccination was coined. Jenner got the idea after observing that milkmaids who had had cowpox never contracted smallpox.
What harm can Ayurveda do? Here below is an example. In the government office where I was working, there was a "Class IV" employee who contracted lepromatous leprosy. Central Government Health Scheme was available to him, so he went to a CGHS dispensary. He opted for ayurvedic treatment, which was available in the dispensary. HE WAS NEVER CURED. If he had opted for "allopathy" (using the term described as pejorative by Non Carborundum), he would have received the Multi-drug therapy available in modern medicine that would have probably cured him completely, or, at the least, would certainly have rendered him non-infective to others.
That is the same problem with all "alternative medicine" — they lure patients away from valid and effective therapies, at much cost to the patients and to society as a whole.
Interesting debate!
@Non Carborundum - your entire argument seem to be in defense of Allopathy. Almost all of it is acceptable. There are sure problems there like in any other business - corporate greed, non-tariff barriers, outright data fudging, etc. - but despite all these, the quality of research in Allopathy is far superior! Granted!
However, my limited point is, WHY DONT YOU ALLOW SIMILAR DEPTH OF RESEARCH IN OTHER ESTABLISHED ALTERNATTIVE MEDICINES AS WELL? Even 0.05% of the research budget of Modern Medicine is not allocated to alternative medicine.. And you guys already cry hoarse! (Such an article link that you shared is what started this debate, if you remember). In effect, (a) you will NOT support public fund for research in alternate medicine (b)you will deride alternatives upfront citing no 'evidence' (which can come only through research) (c) you will cite evidence of 'ineffectiveness' based on 'specious research' by people whose null hypothesis is to prove these alternatives are hoax - and you know how data can be manipulated to get desired results as in case of voodoo climate science, dont you? (d) you will ignore million empirical evidences staring at your face of cures in alternate medicines (e) When hitting a wall in allopathy - an in jaundice - reluctantly co-opt alternate medicines into allopathy - as in Keezhanelli or Liv 52... And then, (f) accuse those who are supporting alternative medicines as "lacking scientific temper' and doing disservice to hindutva!! Wow!
My scientific temper would get satisfied ONLY if 'neutral' parties who do not have any allegiance or support for Modern Medicine as well as Alternative medicine does large scale studies to conclude specific elements in alternative medicine that are consistently achieving desired results. Am yet to come across any such major study which gave alternative medicine an honest chance and it failed!
For all we know, may be there is serious scope for cooperative research between modern medicine and alternative medicine. For e.g., blood grouping was not prevalent in alternative medicine - if this data is combined with where alternative medicine is working & NOT working, we can refine alternative medicine practices.. For such studies, one should accept both practices at face value, which you try to deny!
witan,
Germ theory in the West is attributed to Louis Pasteur and not Leeuwenhoek. Anyway, here is what Holwell's 1767 paper says about inoculation in India,
"Thus far the system of practice pursued by the Bramins will, I imagine, appear rational enough, and well founded; but they have other reasons for particularly prohibiting the use of these three articles, which to some may appear purely speculative, if not chimerical. They lay it down as a principle, that the immediate (or instant) cause of the smallpox exists in the mortal part of every human and animal form; that the mediate (or second) acting cause, which stirs up the first, and throws it into a state of fermentation, is multitudes of imperceptible animalculae floating in the atmosphere; that these are the cause of all epidemical diseases, but more particularly of the small pox."
No matter how you spin it, that *is* germ theory and that was published in a medical journal in London.
I and those around me have personally experienced benefits from spirulina, oil pulling, water treatment, aloe vera (for burns) chinese medicine, reiki etc. I suggested oil pulling to my father when his knee pained it immediately subsided (and has not returned in the last 2 years!)
One can write reams, but it cannot match personal experiences. It is that simple.
on jenner: what you say is western nonsense. you can use as many names as you want - vaccination, inoculation or virolation - the principle has been established.
between inoculation and vaccination, there is not much difference except the minor detail of which virus to use. indians practiced inoculation. see holwell's paper. they were not giving out blankets laced with small pox virus without knowing what to expect as you claim.
they actually injected it into the bloodstream in exchange for payment. they also prescribed a diet and went into causation (germ theory).
your jenner myth is also interesting. he observed nothing. he plagiarized from whatever was published about india. the report on inoculation in india was also a front page article in london times in 1789. so we have jenner suddenly discovering stuff in 1796?
jenner also did not know why he was using cowpox virus except for the fact that some milkman agreed to supply the cultures after convincing him that getting the cheaper cowpox virus was good enough for him. so it was not even jenner's idea to switch from smallpox virus to cowpox virus and he did it without knowing why.
in any case, the minor details do not matter. the technique was already in place and today's vaccination is a morphed form of this technique.
even today, scientists form harvard and stanford scout india and china for folk medicines and patent them.
LATEST from Western science and medicine as researched at Yale and other top universities!!! This is no joke! It is a very short video of one of the latest techniques Western medicine has invented! So please watch it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSwhpF9iJSs
Muthu, Arvind
I am not implying that Ayurveda does not have good stuff in it. If it were subject to more testing rigour, only the good stuff would remain and one could guard it from being stolen.
Also, it is infeasible to accept every bizarre theory at face value and test it at great expense. Although, now that I think of it, if I stare angrily enough at a glass full of water I might be able to scare it into changing its pH value. If you pay me well enough I could test that theory for you.
arvind, good point about jenner and inoculation: of course the 'barbaric practice of the hindoos' became "science" when white guy jenner discovered it. that's the usual practice.
non carborundum, the problem i have with anybody who claims they have the answer -- be it some padre or some scientist or some communist or some allopath -- is that there is generally *no* *one* answer to anything. i have a horror of monotheism of any kind -- because it has been proven time and time again that monocultures are less robust in the long run, although of course they can be quite successful in the short run. in particular, if the monoculture is about religious or other dogma, it will cause you to unconsciously close your eyes to the possibilities of other belief systems. this is exactly what allopaths also exhibit: they believe they have access to the ONE TRUTH, and goddammit, they are going to fix all the non-believers.
it would do them a world of good to remember that their ancestors were barbers, who used leeches and bloodletting for practically any disease. in fact, this intriguing practice persists in the UK: an allopath with a basic degree is a 'Dr'. but when he/she gets to the top, he/she reverts to 'Mr.' -- which is a sign of respect to early allopaths who were barbers.
monocultures and monotheism of all kinds have wonderful results, as we have seen in the ROL vs. ROP battles. so why should allopathic monoculture be an exception?
@muthu, I am a neutral party. I haven't been to a doctor in years. My views here have nothing to do with support for one form of medicine or the other, but have to do with a sense of history.
You cannot credit all that is good to allopathy when in reality, the system has its roots in the medicines of medieval times.
Apart from inoculation, there was another famous contribution from India. Garcia da Orta, who escaped the Inquisition and came to Goa, met Indian physicians and wrote a book on Indian medicines in the sixteenth century.
This book was considered indispensable in the field of medicine. For details of the book, please see the Wikipedia page at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colóquios_dos_simples_e_drogas_da_India
This article has a treasury of Indian medical system, many - coopeted by the west
http://www.hinduwisdom.info/Hindu_Culture2.htm
Eg
Susruta calls surgery, "the first and best of medical sciences." He ..
@nizhal yoddha — Dec 24, 2011 12:00 AM
Who are the "non-believers"? You have turned the terminology upside down! The votaries of "alternative" are called "believers", whereas modern doctors, if they practice science-based medicine as they are expected to do, have to be sceptics, and expected not to accept any therapy or medication until it is proven ("prove" in the original sense of the word, as used in science) through rigorous study. The opinion of an "authority" or guru is not sufficient, and, particularly, bare anecdotes without verifiable evidence are worthless.
@nizhal yoddha re comment "Dec 24, 2011 12:00 AM ... their ancestors were barbers ... etc."
I suggest that you read the Wikipedia article titled "Barber surgeon", which opens with: “The barber surgeon was one of the most common medical practitioners of medieval Europe - generally charged with looking after soldiers during or after a battle. In this era, surgery was not generally conducted by physicians, but by barbers.” Is it not clear that physicians were not barbers? In any case, modern surgery has grown out of having to depend on barbers for their sharp razors.
Also, modern chemistry has been freed from the mumbo-jumbo of mediaeval alchemy. I mention this because Ayurveda and its kindred practices (like Siddha, Unani) have not abandoned belief in alchemy.
Here are some quotes form Har Bilas Sarda's Hindu Superiority. I quote from the chapter on medicine (Ayurveda) page 267
Lord Ampthill recently (February 1905) said at Madras: “Now we are beginning to find out that the Hindu Shastras also contain a Sanitary Code no less correct in principle, and the great law giver, Manu, was one of the greatest sanitary reformers the world has ever seen.”
Professor Wilson says “ The ancient Hindus attained as thorough a proficiency in medicine and surgery as any people whose acquisitions are recorded. This might be expected, because their patient attention and natural shrewdness would render them excellent observers, whilst the extent and fertility of their native country would furnish them with many valuable drugs and medicaments. Their diagnosis is said, in consequence, to define and distinguish symptoms with great accuracy, and their Matria Medica is the most voluminous.” Wilson’s Works Volume III page 269.
Mr. Weber says: "In surgery, too, the Indians seem to have attained a special proficiency, and in this department, European surgeons might, perhaps, even in the present day still learn something from them, as indeed they have already borrowed from them the operation of rhinoplasty" From Weber's indian literature page 270.
Sir W. W Hunter says: “The surgery of the ancient Indian physicians was bold and skilful. They conducted amputations, arresting the bleeding by pressure, a cup shaped bandage and boiling oil; practised lithotomy; performed operations in the abdomen and the uterus; cured hernia, fistula and piles; set broken bones and dislocations; and were dextrous in extraction of foreign objects from the body. A special branch of surgery was devoted to rhinoplasty, or operations for improving deformed ears and noses and forming new ones, a useful operation which the European surgeons have now borrowed. The ancient Indian surgeons also mention a cure for neuralgia, analogous to cutting of the fifth nerve above the eyebrow. They devoted great care to the making of surgical instruments and to the training of students by means of operations performed on wax spread on a board or on the tissues and cells of the vegetable kingdom, and upon dead animals. They were expert in midwifery, not shrinking from the most critical operations, and in the diseases of woman and children. Their practise of physic embraced the classification, causes, symptoms and treatment of diseases, diagnosis and prognosis. Considerable advances were also made in veterinary science, and monographs exist on the disease of horses, elephants, etc.” Indian Gazetteer, “India” p. 220.
Hi!
Stumbled upon this blog, in trying to look up evidence based alternative medical treatments.
Strongly agree with NonCarborundum.
Say, if one were to come down with a case of acute appendicitis, allopathy would be the way to go, wouldnt it? As would be someone seriously injured in a road traffic accident, right?
For, I have come across quite a few patients, who came just too late, simply because their alternative medicine practitioners kept telling them otherwise. Such loss of life is totally unwarranted!
So instead of denouncing allopathy, it would be better if supporters, proponents of alternative medicine came up with strong evidence. All natural compounds with medicinal activity are not under the proprietary ownership of alternative medicine. There are many allopathic drugs from natural derivatives, except the latter have been put to rigorous testing, and only if there is any proof, then put out for use!
The whole of evolution is a question of trial and error only!
How else would you explain us still having appendices, which serve no use, rather become inflamed every now and then!
yeah renita, 'evidence-based'. that's a nice euphemism for statistics-biased rapid generalization, without understanding the root causes. we all know how iffy the FDA drug approval process is, even with all the built-in checks and balances. the fact is that there is no substitute for decades or centuries of observation, which is what ayurveda gives you. as to the allegation that non-allopathy is not scientific, just look at the amount of acute observation that is demonstrated in the hortus malabaricus, the 12-volume encyclopaedia of the western ghats flora, written around 1500 CE, by a malayali vaidya (itty achuthan kollatt) and three tulu vaidyas. that is 'evidence-based' indeed, and the information came from their ayurvedia palm leaf manuscripts. so if you say that allopathy is trial and error, why is ayurvedic trial and error over centuries not acceptable, whereas a 12-year FDA trial is the cat's whiskers?
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