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Alternative Medicine: Your Money and Your Life?
Introduction
Knowledge is power. So also is supposed knowledge. Which is why those who
practise mysterious
skills have also been extremely anxious to conceal exactly what it is they do.
If the ancient Greeks
had been able to see the backstage activities of the priests of the Oracle at
Delphi, those priests
would soon have been out of a job. Nobody appreciates this better than the
alternative therapist.
As medical science discovers ever more treatments for the diseases
of our modern society, people's
expectations grow and they demand more of medicine. Disease patterns have
changed. The
eradication of diseases such as typhoid and cholera was accomplished with the
introduction of clean
piped water, better sewerage systems and better nutrition. Medicine played very
little part in the
changes that doubled average British life spans. Later, with the discovery of
penicillin and the sulpha
drugs, many other killer diseases became curable. But even they were only the
beginning. Today, we
see regular reports in the press of amazing medical advances that foster
expectations of a rapid and
complete cures in all cases in western societies. Certainly, in many cases,
cures that would once have
been thought of as miraculous are possible, but when the instant cures demanded
do not materialise,
patients become disappointed with their physician and resort to alternative or
complementary
medicine. Once there, the patient finds that the alternative practitioner takes
an intense interest in
him as a person with time to listen and to talk. He becomes hooked.
Many of the medical problems of our western world are still caused
by the environment in which
we live. But they are not the diseases of childhood caused by the filthy
conditions of the last century.
Indeed in many cases they are not diseases at all but illnesses. Although these
two are synonymous
to many, there is a difference between a disease and an illness; the disease
being caused by a virus
or bacterium that must be killed to effect a cure, for example, where illness
can be a feeling of being
unwell that is not caused by an organism.
The placebo effect
When an ailment is treated successfully, by whatever means, that success may be
for of one of three
reasons. The first is that the cure is a direct result of the treatment, as in
the case of a bacterium killed by an antibiotic. The second is that the disease
is what is known as
self-limiting – in other
words, the natural healing power of the body will clear it up eventually
whether it is treated or not,
as in the case of a cold. The third is where a substance that has no curative
powers is given but,
because the patient believes it is a curative treatment, he gets well. This is
called the placebo effect.
The idea of placebos dates back to the dawn of medical history but
the term in a medical sense
wasn't coined until 1890. The editor of the
Medical Press
talks of the case of a woman who
successfully sued her physician for using an injection of water and charging
her for morphine. The
editor says 'We feel sorry for it, but apparently the law does not think well
of placebos'. Despite the
physician's use of water, however, the lady had thought it to be morphine at
the time and had been
cured. If the physician had told her that it was water, her cure would probably
not have happened.
The majority of people attending a doctor's surgery will have
symptoms such as headache, backache,
tummy upset, sore throat or tiredness. When a person with such a complaint has
faith in his physician
and the physician demonstrates faith in his treatment, the combination is
powerful enough to effect
an improvement, and in most cases, a cure. Generally, no medication is needed.
However, the patient
is conditioned to expect medication and feels cheated if told merely to go home
and rest. The doctor,
knowing this, prescribes something. In conventional medical practice, placebos
tend not to be water
but some licensed medicine, tonic, cough syrup, etc., which will have no
adverse side effects but will
be efficacious because the patient believes that it will – the placebo effect.
It has been estimated that
between 35% and 45% of all prescriptions today are unlikely to have any
therapeutic effect on the
diseases for which they were prescribed.
Patients are deluded into thinking that their treatment is curing
them; doctors too may come to
believe it. The distinguished physician, Richard Asher, pointing out that a
therapist's enthusiasm was
as important to the success of a treatment as the faith of his patient went on:
'If you can believe
fervently in your treatment, even though controlled studies show that it is
quite useless, then your
results are much better, your patients are much better, and your income is much
better too.'
The placebo effect is very strong. This was demonstrated very
convincingly during the Korean War.
An American surgeon was treating wounded soldiers at a M.A.S.H. unit, when he
experienced an
agonising pain in his abdomen. He diagnosed acute appendicitis. Knowing that if
he stopped work
he would be risking the lives of the wounded, he instructed a nurse to give him
an injection of
morphine. She gave him an injection, the pain went and he continued working
pain free. Later he
was operated on for a ruptured appendix. Some time after that, the surgeon read
through the case
notes on himself. He saw that the nurse had not given him morphine. Realising
that his judgement
might be impaired if she gave him the drug, she had merely given the surgeon an
injection of salt
water. His belief in the power of morphine was so strong, however, that the
placebo had killed all
sensation of pain.
The power of placebos is confirmed constantly in double-blind,
controlled trials that
are used to test the efficacy of drugs and other treatments. Patients are
divided randomly usually into
two groups; one group will take the drug, the other, acting as controls, will
be given something
which seems identical to the drug but which is actually an inert substance with
no curative powers -
the placebo. Neither the patients nor the doctors administering the substances
know who is taking
which. They are both 'blind'. Under these circumstances, you might expect a
change in those taking
the drug while those taking the placebo would remain the same. In fact,
invariably, there are changes
in both groups; the changes in the symptoms of those taking the placebo
mimicking the changes in
those taking the drug. This then is the placebo effect.
If a patient does get well under these circumstances, it may be no
bad thing. The medical practitioner
has determined that there is no disease present, so the opportunity for
effective treatment is not
missed; as the inert placebo can have no adverse side effects, it can do no
harm; and the cost is
minimal. Under these circumstances, all should be well.
It was undoubtedly this placebo effect that many alternative treatments relied upon when they began. You can make up your own mind from their histories outlined below. It may also be this placebo effect upon which some alternative therapists rely for the apparent effectiveness of their treatments today. Many have been developed since their inception. Where conventional medicine and alternative medicine have tended to differ is, to some extent, in their philosophies. The difference is between science and reason at the one extreme, and quackery and the dishonest exploitation of human suffering on the other. Both profess an honest search for
truth and, for patients to benefit, both rely to at least some extent on faith.
Conventional vs Alternative Medicine
The Chinese have a proverb. It states that:
The superior doctor prevents sickness
The mediocre doctor attends to impending sickness
The inferior doctor treats actual sickness
Conventional medicine is not without its faults. It relies not so much on preventing disease, but on treating it. To this extent, if the Chinese proverb is to be believed, conventional medicine is practised largely by mediochre and inferior doctors. They also concentrate on treating specific disorders or symptoms rather than the whole person. Alternative medical practitioners, on the other hand profess to take a different approach, treating the person as a whole – a 'holistic' approach – rather than symptoms, although not all do: homoeopathy, for example, concentrates on creating the same symptoms as the disease being treated.
Alternative medicines
Since the time of Hippocrates, the practice of medicine has been determined by
two opposing
philosophies: the scientific and the non-scientific; the rational and the
absurd. Although the
demarcation between conventional 20th century medicine, the scientific, and the
many alternative
medicinal practices, the non-scientific, is blurred to some extent because
there are no criteria for the
demarcation of the absurd, there is a distinction we can use:
- where medicines are clinically tested and evaluated in well-conducted controlled trials, they can be fairly said to be scientific.
- where they do not derive from any coherent body of evidence and they have not been the subject of critical assessment either of their efficacy or of their safety, they must be suspect.
In considering or selecting a medical treatment within conventional medicine, there is always recourse to their governing body or to law if anything goes wrong; outside conventional medicine, this may not be the case. It seems to me sensible to look at both before deciding on which way to go.
Below are some of the more popular alternative treatments that appear to me to have an unscientific foundation.
Acupuncture
Acupuncture has been around since about 300 BC. In China, it was a religious
ritual of bloodletting,
in principle similar to the use of leeches of western medicine, which later
developed into pricking
with needles at points along 'meridians'. These meridians were imaginary lines
on the body believed
to be linked to internal organs, although they totally disregarded the anatomy,
following instead what
are called 'yin-yang' lines. Acupuncture was banned in China by the Emperor in
1822 as it was a
serious bar to progress in medicine.
The practice was only revived for political reasons by Chairman
Mao as a cheap form of anaesthesia.
You may be interested to learn that acupuncture in 1972 was 'usually performed
by a young girl aged
20-25 who is politically sincere and who spends 2-3 days in advance of the
operation in encouraging
the patient in his mental attitude, especially towards the works and thoughts
of Chairman Mao'.
Acupuncture has always been mysterious in the West but that mystery disappears
when we find that
the patients were carefully selected and that only some 10-15% of those
carefully selected patients
were deemed suitable; the acupuncture was used in conjunction with
premedication, a local
anaesthetic and other drugs, and an intravenous drip; and that, despite all
this, not all patients were
anaesthetised sufficiently. The reports of acupuncture as an anaesthetic
tapered off rapidly in the late
'70s and in 1980 when two Chinese professors denounced it as a myth and a
political hoax.
There have been numerous clinical trials of acupuncture; none has
been able to demonstrate any
differences in pain relief between treatment and placebo groups. Not one has
been able to show any
lasting benefit from the treatment.
Aromatherapy
Aromatherapy is a form of herbalism where plant oils generally are massaged
into parts of the body
or inhaled, rather than being taken internally. Like most alternative
strategies its concept has been
around for centuries although the term 'Aromathérapie' was coined in the
1928 by a French chemist,
René Maurice Gattefossé, whose family owned a perfume factory.
Patricia Davis, founder of the
International Federation of Aromatherapists, defines aromatherapy as 'the art -
and science – of
using essential plant oils in treatments'. This is an inaccurate and misleading
description as for it to
be a science, there would have to be clinical trials to provide evidence of
efficacy, and there are
none, and the word 'essential' which might infer that it is necessary, only
means that the oils have
an essence or smell.
Aromatherapy should not be undertaken lightly. As Patricia Davis,
herself, warns, the oils used can
build up toxins in the body and there have been several deaths attributed to
aromatherapy. Her advice
is to be sure to consult a qualified aromatherapist before embarking on any
treatment. As anyone can
set up as an aromatherapist, you may consider it prudent to consult someone
rather more qualified
than that.
It is claimed that aromatherapy can treat all manner of ailments.
Apparently, the oils will help the
body to destroy viruses and in this context, says Jean Valnet, President of the
French Society, the
smaller the amount of oil used, the greater is the effect. Presumably,
therefore, using the smallest
dose – none – will be the most effective!
The two oils which Davis claims will cure practically anything are
lavender and fennel. Strangely,
however, she says that fennel is toxic and should never be used.
Aromatic oils are frequently used in conjunction with other quack
remedies and practices. For
example many aroma-therapists tailor their treatment to a person's star sign.
Plants are linked to
signs of the Zodiac and an oil used to treat an Aries would not be used to
treat the same complaint
in a Leo. Other aromatherapists work on a person's aura or use acupuncture
points as the site for
their treatment. The new Reflexology or Zone therapy points are also used, so
that someone who has
a backache might be treated by having a spot of oil rubbed into a toe!
The oils, we are told, are antidotes to homoeopathic remedies and
the two should not be used
together. In fact, it seems that the effect is so strong that, ideally, they
should not even be kept in
the same room.
There is little doubt that in the modern, Western world there is a
great deal of mental stress, and that
a massage in a nice-smelling environment may help a person to relax. But there
is little evidence that
aromatherapy really does anything more than that – and the oils can cause harm.
Aromatherapy may
treat an imagined illness but claims of cures for diseases caused by
micro-organisms are totally
unsubstantiated.
Bach's Flower Remedies see Homoeopathy.
Biomagnetics, Radionics, and Radiesthesia
Biomagnetics
is an extension of spondylotherapy invented by George de la Warr who died in
1969.
His equipment consisted of a box in which were receptacles to hold blood, hair
or other samples.
From these receptacles were wires that led to eight control knobs on the front
of the box and a rubber
pad on top.
The procedure was as follows: With all the knobs set to zero, you
placed samples from your patient
into the box and rubbed your fingers on the rubber pad. If your fingers stuck
suddenly, you noted 0
on the first knob; if they did not, you turned that knob to 1 and tried again.
You kept repeating the
procedure, turning the knobs up until the fingers did stick giving you a number
somewhere between
0 and 99,999,999. Then you looked up that number in de la Warr's
Guide to Clinical Condition
and
that would tell you what was wrong with the patient.
Once a diagnosis was arrived at, a similar box was used to treat
the patient. Looking up its
'Broadcast Treatment Rate', you set up dials on this box and healing rays
radiating from the box
would cure the patient – wherever in the world he was and whether he knew he
was being treated or
not. Sometimes, 'practitioners will add the appropriate homoeopathic remedy,
colour, flower
remedy, vitamin or mineral sample by placing it on the treatment set near the
blood spot'. It seems
that a yellow/orange colour, for example, is good for liver disease, hard
chronic tumours, idiocy and
ulceration of the lung.
Biomagnetic treatment was so effective that, we are told, it could
cure illnesses which hadn't yet
occurred. On one occasion, while de la Warr was in Oxford, he was given a hair
from a man who
was fifty miles away in a London hospital. By examining the hair, de la Warr
diagnosed that the man
had tuberculosis in one lung. X-rays taken by the hospital showed no signs of
disease so, obviously,
he hadn't actually got tuberculosis yet. De la Warr broadcast his healing rays
and the patient never
did develop tuberculosis. Now, isn't that amazing!
Radionics,
or
Drown Radio Therapy
, was pioneered in the 1930s by Dr Ruth Drown, in
collaboration with George de la Warr and Albert Abrams. It too used a
mysterious black box to send
healing waves through the air to alleviate illness. In this case, Dr Drown had
a collection of samples
of her patients' blood which she kept on blotting paper. If a patient didn't
feel well, he would
telephone Dr Drown, and she put the relevant sample in the box and 'broadcast'
the appropriate
waves towards the patient's home. Well, it saved time and the trouble of having
to go out. Does it
work? When tested by the Biological Sciences Division of the University of
Chicago in 1950, Dr
Drown's diagnoses were so far divorced from reality that she gave up before
completing half of
them.
Radiesthesia
was invented by a priest, Abbé Mermet. It was the original dowsing
concept on which
Biomagnetics was based. When a shaman had difficulty communicating with the
spirits, he used a
stick – the magician's wand. A number of such aids were used and, instead of a
stick, the Abbé used
a pendulum to pick up the 'vibrations'. To diagnose disease using Radiesthesia,
a sample from the
patient was placed with 'an inert powder impregnated with the vibrations of
various diseases' and
a homoeopathic remedy. Then the pendulum was swung over them and by some
obscure means, the
patient was cured. Radiesthesia was fashionable in the 1930s and may still be
found occasionally
today.
Chiropractic see Osteopathy.
Colour Therapy
In some respects, colour therapy is already an everyday practice. We all have
our favourite colours
with which we like to live. Colour therapy is a bit like aromatherapy. The
difference is that colour
therapists believe in the therapeutic effects of coloured lights instead of
smells. The ancient belief
that colours can heal was developed into an alternative medical treatment in
the twentieth century.
It is based on the colours associated with various emotions as in 'seeing red'
when one is angry, or
being green with envy, or is that a relaxing colour?
But Colour Therapy here is not just matter of finding what a
person likes and painting his living-room walls with it, but a deception. The
best-known example of this confidence trick seems to be
the Spectro-Chrome Therapy machine of Colonel Dinshah Ghadiali. The way it
worked was that
after determining what was wrong with your patient, you slid an appropriately
coloured piece of
glass into the machine, switched on a light in the machine and the patient was
healed by coloured
light that emerged. But there was another twist. In order for it to work, the
patient also had to give
up all food and drink that he enjoyed.
Another practitioner, William Estep, claimed that by shining
coloured lights onto plain water, he
could change it into an effective medicine. Just think, if Christ had had that,
he might have produced
Sanatogen.
Dianetics
Dianetics is the brainchild of the science fiction writer, Lafayette Ronald
(Ron) Hubbard, who
founded Scientology in 1952. Its first mention was in a 1950 article in
Astounding Science Fiction.
Hubbard claimed that dianetics was 'a milestone for Man comparable to his
discovery of fire and
superior to his invention of the wheel and the arch.'
Dianetics is so convoluted that it is difficult to summarise. The
theory is that we each have two
minds. One is like a computer and is perfect, the other is the source of all
the elements which make
that computer malfunction. This reactive mind, it seems, remembers everything
which happens to
us and, as some of the things are not nice, we remember these 'engrams' and
become unhappy.
Where the dianetic therapy is used is in ridding the patient of these engrams
by making him re-live
them until they are erased from his memory. Once you are 'clear' of all your
engrams, Dianetics
teaches that your IQ knows no limit. As Hubbard put it: 'The Dianetic Clear is
to the current normal
individual as the current normal individual is to the severely insane.'
Like a number of other pseudo sciences, dianetics had its box of
tricks to aid the auditing process.
This one was called an electropsychometer. Even when the patient said that
nothing was bothering
him, if the needle on the box moved, this indicated that an engram was lurking
somewhere to be
cleared.
Later, other concepts were added; one of which was the 'thetan'.
The thetan, it seems, is an immortal
being which is such a fine mind that 'a raving mad thetan is far more sane than
a normal human
being'. At the moment it is 'you' but it can remember past lives going back
trillions of years
(according to Hubbard), and its memory includes all the engrams that entails.
Clearing you of these
engrams frees the immortal thetan. It didn't matter to Hubbard that we haven't
been around for
trillions of years. He frequently used even more ridiculously large numbers. He
talks, for example,
of 'creation implants' which happened seventy trillion trillion trillion
trillion trillion trillion years
ago. To put that in context, it is generally accepted that the Universe began
only a mere 15 billion
years ago.
There is a story that Hubbard invented Scientology as a bet that
he could invent a new religion and
become rich on it. People's gullibility won him that one; and, it seems, they
continue to fall for it.
Eye Exercises
Biologists teach that the eye focuses by altering the thickness and curvature
of the lens, making it
fatter and shortening its focal length when looking at close objects, and
making it thinner and
lengthening its focal length when looking at distant objects. But Dr William
Bates, who died in 1931,
believed that biologists had got it wrong. He said that what really happened
was that the lens moved
backwards and forwards, like the camera lens does. This was accomplished, he
said, by muscles
which squeezed the eye thus changing the distance from the lens to the retina.
There are animals
whose eyes do focus in this way, but man isn't one of them.
Dr Bates' cure for sight problems was not spectacles but exercises
designed to strengthen or relax
the squeezing muscles. Some of the exercises were quite dangerous; he
recommended staring at the
Sun, for example. Doing so would destroy part of the retina and cause blindness.
Faith Healing
Faith healing in its most public form consists of the laying on of hands at
revivalist meetings. But
ordinary hands will not do. At one time, only Royal hands were effective and
healing was a royal
prerogative for some 700 years. King Pyrrhus we learn, cured the sick by laying
his toe on them.
Nowadays the powers of healing are generally attributed to religious persons.
However, it has been
argued that if the power of prayer were as powerful as the religious community
would have us
believe, it should be possible to demonstrate evidence of increases in
longevity. By studying tables
of longevity, Galton noticed, however, that royalty and the clergy did not
enjoy long lives. He also
noted that churches and cathedrals were just as likely to be damaged by
lightning, earthquakes or
fires as any other buildings of comparable size.
The church best known for its reliance on faith rather than
conventional medicine to treat sickness
is the Church of Christ Scientist, founded by Mary Baker Eddy in the 19th
century because she was
disillusioned with homoeopathy. She reasoned that, since a homoeopath's
patients were cured with
remedies which contained nothing, then diseases didn't exist. Indeed, the
church teaches that disease
is not real but a dream from which the patient must be awoken. 'Tumours,
ulcers, tubercles,
inflammation, pain, deformed joints are waking dream-shadows, dark images of
mortal thought
which flee before the light of Truth.' By 'dissolving the mental attitude from
which all diseases
ultimately stem', diseases such as cancer, meningitis, club foot and pernicious
anaemia can be cured.
Similarly, the church teaches that poisons do not exist. They teach, for
example, that strychnine is
harmless, and that it is only the
belief
that strychnine can kill that is responsible for a person's death. Personally,
I wouldn't want to risk it.
Studies of strict religious groups have usually shown that their
adherents do tend to live longer than the
general population. However, a study of mortality patterns, carried out by a
coroner in 1956, found
that the average age at death of Christian Scientists was significantly
lower
than average and that
they suffered higher incidences of heart disease and cancers.
Incidentally, a very young girl, asked what she understood by the
word 'faith', defined it as 'belief
in the untrue'. Now there is a sensible girl.
Homoeopathy and Bach's Flower Remedies.
Homoeopathy was invented by Christian Friedrich Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843) in
1796 as a
reaction to excessive bloodletting, purgation, induced vomiting and the
non-scientific approach of
the medical profession of his time. He became very successful during the period
1821-43.
Homoeopathy works on the principle that the symptoms that the patient is
displaying of a disease
are not caused by the disease, but are the body's way of combating the disease.
The homoeopath
does not treat diseases, he treats symptoms. So the homoeopath gives the
patient a medicine which
will cause the same symptoms as he is already displaying thus, so the theory
goes, assisting the body
to fight the disease. An example might be to brush a person suffering from
measles with nettles!
Hippocrates, the father of medicine said: 'By opposites opposites are cured.'
Homoeopathy's motto:
'Like cures like' is the exact opposite of this.
Hahnemann originally conceived homeopathy as a form of placebo
treatment where dilute
substances which were believed to mimic the symptoms were given. Later, he
introduced
'Succussion' and 'Dynamism' to homoeopathy, and the potency theory of
'vitalism' where the spirit
of the person entered the dilute solution to bring about a cure.
Homoeopathic remedies use active substances, but in
infinitesimally small quantities. Indeed,
Hahnemann advised that they should be so dilute that 'not a single molecule of
the curative
substance should reach the patient's lips'. To achieve this, homoeopathists
take one drop of active
substance and mix it with 100 drops of distilled water. One drop of the mixture
is then mixed with
another 100 drops of water. One drop of that mixture is mixed with yet another
100 drops of water,
and on it goes. Each of these mixes is called a 'potency' because it is
supposed that with each
dilution, 'vital force' is imparted to it and the medicine gets more potent.
The usual minimum
commercial potency is 12. This means that one drop has been mixed with 100
drops 12 times so the dilution is one part in 1000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000
(10
-24
). But homoeopathic remedies can
be bought with potencies as high as 30, or one part in 1000 000 000 000 000 000
000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000
(10
-60
). That
is the equivalent of one grain of sand in a volume many times greater than that
of our entire solar
system! These, it seems, are even more effective.
But even that is really only a start. The World Health
Organisation reports that dilutions, sorry,
potencies, of over 100,000 (10
-200,000
) have been used successfully. It would not be unreasonable for
you to wonder how a quantity as minute as nothing at all can do any good. Well,
this is where
'succussion', or 'dynamism' or 'potentisation' comes in. Like James Bond's
Martinis, it seems that
it is important that these mixes are shaken, not stirred. By this means, we are
asked to believe, the
water 'remembers' the active substance which was mixed in it originally even
though it is no longer
present. We are not told, however, why it doesn't remember all the other
chemicals, fish droppings
and toxic waste that were mixed with it when it was sea and river water.
The Dean of the Faculty of Homoeopathy in Great Britain prescribed
common salt, diluted so that
there was not one molecule left, to treat 'a girl with a broken love affair or
a woman who has never
been able to cry'. Well, tears are salty, aren't they? Because red pepper gives
people feelings of
homesickness, a German homoeopathist suggested that the 11 million foreign
workers in Europe
might benefit from a homoeopathic dose of red pepper.
There have been many trials into homoeopathy; not one has ever
found any evidence of benefit. A
French clinical trial that purported to do so was reported in
Nature
in 1988. It made sweeping claims
and was hailed by homoeopaths as scientific proof of the veracity of their
claims. However, the
editor of
Nature
was attacked for publishing nonsense so he, together with the man who had
exposed
Uri Geller's paranormal powers and a specialist in scientific fraud, asked the
French laboratory to
repeat the tests in their presence to confirm the results. Their request was
granted but with them
present, the laboratory was quite unable to repeat its original findings.
Dr David Reilly, a staunch defender of 'scientific' homoeopathy
said after the first French trial: 'If
we prove the observations wrong we will have exposed homoeopathy as one of
medical science's
greatest misadventures – a folly so massive it will merit study in itself'.
They did, and it is.
Reilly and colleagues conducted a study of their own in 1986. It
was, he claimed, the first double-blind, controlled trial of homoeopathy in hay
fever. At the end of the 5-week trial a third of the
subjects had given up and left, far too high percentage for an acceptable
trial. Nevertheless, they
published conclusions – which were so erroneous that they provoked a vast
amount of
correspondence.
Because homoeopathy is sponsored by the Royal Family and its
supposed remedies are prescribed
by some general practitioners, it has been given a veneer of respectability.
That, however, doesn't
make it any less ridiculous.
A variation of homoeopathy is
Bach's Flower Remedies
, the brainchild of Dr Edward Bach (1886-1936). This claims to cure ailments as
diverse as itches, cuts and bruises, premature ejaculation,
Delirium Tremens, fever, convulsions, and painful periods. Dr Charles Elliott,
Her Majesty Queen
Elizabeth's homoeopath, called it 'one of the most comprehensive
state-of-the-art systems of healing
known'. Its claims don't stop at curing humans, apparently; we are asked to
believe that it will revive
unconscious animals if it is rubbed behind their ears and that it is even a
tonic for out-of-sorts plants.
Iridology
Iridology is a diagnostic technique which involves gazing into the eyes. Its
proponents believe the
body's organs are shown in the iris, and that the iris shows what illness a
patient is suffering. It was
invented in 1881 by a man named von Péczely. Because it is still
believed in today, a test was carried
out in 1988 to test the diagnostic accuracy of those who professed to use it.
It is claimed that gall
bladder disease is the easiest condition to find so 39 subjects known to have
the disease and 39
healthy controls of the same sex and age were sent to five leading
iridologists. On average each
iridologist got about half of the diagnoses correct, about what one would
expect to get by chance.
When the results of the trial were sent to the iridologists, they were
disappointed but said that
evaluating the image of the iris without other medical information from the
patient was difficult -
but then if the practitioner had the other information, why would he need
iridology? The study
concluded that iridology was not a useful diagnostic aid.
A later study of the change in doctors' belief in iridology was
carried out. The paper mentioned
above was sent to physicians who had written articles in medical and
alternative medical journals
in favour of iridology, and they were asked whether it had changed their belief
in the reliability in
the procedure. While the belief of the conventional doctors, on average,
changed from 50% belief
to strong disbelief, there was less impact on practitioners of alternative
therapies. They, it seems,
preferred to prolong the myth.
Metamorphic Technique see Reflexology
Naturopathy
Naturopathy can trace its history back for centuries. It is a hotchpotch
collection of pseudo-medical
therapies which have as their base teachings that all illness can be treated by
purely natural means.
What he believed to be its fundamental principles were laid down by Harry
Benjamin in 1936. The
first principle was '
that all forms of disease
are due to the
same cause
, namely the accumulation in
the system of waste materials and bodily refuse, which has been steadily piling
up in the body . . .
through years of wrong habits of living' (Benjamin's italics). To rid the body
of these accumulations,
Benjamin proposed: fasting, scientific dieting, hydrotherapy, general
body-building and hygiene, and
psychotherapy. These pose questions such as: how long should one fast and may
one drink; what
constitutes a 'scientific diet'; as there are many contradictory forms, what
form of psychotherapy
should be undertaken. Naturopaths vary so much that you may not get the same
answer from any
two.
The best-known proponent of naturopathy this century was probably
John H Kellogg, the brother of
the man who invented cornflakes. The Kellogg family were Seventh Day
Adventists. As Seventh Day
Adventists, by and large, are vegetarians, his brand of naturopathy was
vegetarian based. Other
aspects of naturopathy include: belief that fasting will cure cancer and other
serious diseases; the
belief that germs do not cause disease, it is the disease which causes germs;
and most naturopaths
believe strongly in 'colonic irrigation', where a hose pipe is inserted into
the rectum and copious
amounts of water are flushed up it. In some cases it may have done some good
but it is anyone's
guess how many people have been killed in this way.
Naturopaths are hard to find in the High Street. Where they
flourish is on Health Farms , most if not
all of which operate on the principles of naturopathy.
New Age Treatments
Cashing in on the current trend towards 'complementary' medicines are a number
of new confidence
tricks which masquerade under the generic title of New Age treatments. They
include
sticking
lighted candles in the ear. This is supposed to create a chimney effect and
suck pressure out of the
head which, it is claimed, will cure such ailments as migraines and clear ear
wax. Nonsense. Even
if there were a chimney effect, it would have to be very strong for that. And
as for pressure in the
head, firstly the eardrum would stop any flow and, even if this were ruptured
(which a suction strong
enough to remove ear wax would undoubtedly do), all that could be sucked out
would be air from
the back of the nose via the Eustachian tube which connects the middle ear to
the back of the throat
(pharynx). Perhaps those who believe in this idea would be well advised not to
venture outside on
a windy day – the wind going in one ear, so much stronger than the effects of a
candle, might blow
their brains out of the other!
A friend of mine uses another similar treatment which, he says, is
called
holistic therapy
. In his
case, he has a pain which, he has been told, is caused by a trapped nerve where
it emerges from his
spine into his shoulder. The holistic therapist uses suction pads on the skin.
These, it appears, are
supposed to suck the trapped nerve to another position so that it is no longer
trapped. The relief he
gets is only temporary.
Another 'New Age' treatment is
crystal therapy
where crystals of various minerals are supposed
to make you better if, for example, you sleep with one under your pillow. Is it
possible to get any
sillier? Well, probably – new ones are being dreamed up all the time.
Osteopathy, Chiropractic and Somatography
Osteopathy was discovered in 1876 by Andrew Still, a bone setter in Missouri.
When three of his
children died from meningitis, he lost faith in the medical profession and
developed the bizarre
theory that all diseases were caused by pressure on blood vessels, particularly
in the spine. These
pressures apparently were caused by misalignments of the vertebrae for which he
invented the term
'subluxations'. To give some idea of the power of osteopathy, Still claimed to
have cured baldness,
growing three inches of hair on a bald head in only one week! He even claimed
that in one small
American town he reset seventeen dislocated hips in one day. Why there should
have been quite so
many dislocated hips in one town on that particular day, we shall never know.
A review of 35 trials into the efficacy of spinal manipulation for
patients with back or neck pain was
published in 1991. Eighteen of the studies (51%) showed favourable results for
manipulation; 5 more
reported positive results in sub-groups; and 8 attempted to compare
manipulation with some form
of placebo, with inconsistent results. But all the trials were poorly conducted
and most of them
reported only short-term effects. The studies that included a long-term
follow-up mostly showed no
positive results. Others, particularly those that were better conducted,
reported that the placebos gave
better results than the manipulation! The authors conclude: 'The results of all
the trials presented
indicate that manipulation is not consistently better than other therapies.'
Chiropractic
was invented by Daniel Palmer, an Iowa grocer, in 1895. It is similar to
osteopathy
but more restricted and even more naive. It was advertised as a cure for almost
all human ailments
from tonsillitis to cancer. In a way it is similar to acupuncture or zone
therapy in that chiropractors
believe that there are control points ranged along the spine.
In 1976 an experiment to test the claims of chiropractors was
carried out in Philadelphia by the
Committee Against Health Fraud. A healthy 4-year old girl was taken to five
chiropractors. The first
diagnosed 'pinched nerves to her stomach and gallbladder', the next a 'twisted
pelvis', the third
thought she would suffer 'headaches,
nervousness, equilibrium and digestive problems
due to spinal misalignment' in the future, yet
another said she had a 'short leg' which if
uncorrected would cause her to suffer 'bad
periods and rough childbirth', and the last said
that she required immediate treatment for a
misaligned hip and neck.
Somatography
is yet another form of
manipulation therapy. Invented in the 1960s by
Bryn Jones, it differs only in that the patient isn't
touched – it is only the patient's aura which is
massaged.
Backache, particularly in the lower back is a
common complaint. This complaint is the single
most common reason for people's consulting a
manipulator. In the vast majority of cases it will clear up by itself without
any treatment at all, and
the claims for the effectiveness of manipulative treatments are unsubstantiated.
Having said that, all forms of manipulative therapy from the ones mentioned to the various forms of massage and physiotherapy do have a calming and relaxing effect (with the possible exception of somatography) which may be just what is required to relax stresses within the body.
Radionics see Biomagnetics
Reflexology or Zone Therapy, and Metamorphic Technique
Reflexology is like acupuncture only even more absurd. The concept goes back to
ancient Egypt but
the present theory and mode of use was the brainchild of an American named
Eunice Ingham early
in the 20th century. It seems that the body can be divided into ten zones
(hence its other name, Zone
Therapy), and each of the zones corresponds to a finger or, more generally now,
a toe. These zones
are subdivided then into 'reflex points' on the foot corresponding to the
various internal organs. The
reflexologist presses various points on the foot and, if discomfort is felt,
that indicates a problem in
some organ of the body. Continuing to apply the pressure until the discomfort
disappears, is
supposed to cure the ailment.
The Metamorphic Technique
was developed in the 1960s by Robert St John. Originally it was
based on Reflexology but now they differ from each other significantly. Anyone
may practice the
technique: all one needs, apparently, is the right attitude
Aromatherapists also use reflexology points. Well, it saves time,
the patient doesn't have to get
undressed and as it doesn't require as much oil, it is cheaper and thus more
profitable for the
therapist.
The technique is based on the assumption that our physical, mental, and
emotional structures are
built up in the nine months from conception to birth, and that later disorders
are traceable to
experiences during this period in the womb. Practitioners of the technique work
on the spinal
reflexology points in the feet which are now considered to correspond not only
to the spinal
vertebrae but also to the 38 week pre-natal period (see Figure 1). Massaging
the feet for about half-an-hour each brings this formative period back into
focus so that energies blocked at that time are
freed. The idea seems to be that using the technique releases the patient's
innate ability to change,
allowing things that go wrong in the womb to be corrected later. Its
practitioners believe that even
genetic disorders can be corrected by these means. In which case, one wonders
why we waste so
much time, money and resources treating cystic fibrosis, spina bifida, and so
on, when all that is
needed to cure these conditions is a little foot massage!
Spondylotherapy
According to Dr Albert Abrams' theory of spondylotherapy, every disease has a
characteristic set
of vibrations. These could be detected by a device called an oscilloclast, a
box of tricks which had
two external wires. One wire ran to a power supply, the second to the forehead
of a healthy volunteer
who, for some reason, had to face west. A sample of blood from the patient was
placed in the box
and Abrams manipulated the healthy volunteer's abdomen until he detected the
vibrations of the
disease on the blood sample and was able to diagnose the disease. Later Abrams
found he didn't
need a blood sample, claiming he could do as well with a sample of handwriting.
It appears that to test Abrams' claims, the American Medical
Association sent him a blood sample
from 'Miss Bell'. Dr Abrams diagnosed cancer, sinusitis and an infection in
Miss Bell's left
fallopian tube. 'Miss Bell' was actually a healthy, male guinea pig! On another
occasion Dr Abrams
diagnosed cancer, malaria, diabetes and clap in a sample which had been
obtained from a chicken.
Trepanation
Trepanation was a surgical technique used by Tibetan monks to open the 'third
eye'. They drilled
a hole in the skull in the region of the pineal gland and then poked around
inside with a sharp stick.
With this third eye open one was supposed to be able to see a person's aura
(presumably enabling
him to practise somatography). In Europe, trepanation was 'invented' by a
Dutchman, Bart Huges
in 1965. He didn't claim to be able to see auras. Instead Huges claimed that
the procedure relieved
the hydrostatic pressure on the brain allowing the arteries to expand. Huges
claimed that it was
similar to having a permanent LSD trip.
During the times of LSD and hippies, there was an underground
magazine
Gandalf's Garden
. In an
article recommending trepanation the authors warned: 'We do not advise anyone
to try trepanning
themselves, since even a fractional miscalculation could cause death or
insanity.' Wouldn't you have
to
be
insane already?
Zone Therapy See Reflexology
Conclusion
The various therapies outlined above differ from conventional medicine
in a number of
important respects. Firstly, they tend to be irrational: claiming to cure
practically everything. Secondly,
when they are tested clinically, they consistently fail to live up to their
promises. In fact, many
won't work anywhere if there is a sceptic present. How can it be that a remedy
doesn't work merely
because there is someone around who doesn't believe in it? It really beggars
belief.
Conventional medicine may only be practised, by law, by those who have
had a considerable
amount of higher education and university, medical training. A study in
Britain, published in 1985,
showed that only 50% of alternative medical practitioners had had any secondary
or tertiary
education. Many also had no qualifications, even in the therapy they professed
to practice.
The placebo effect is strong. Many ailments have psychological
causes. They, and many more which
are caused by bacteria and viruses, are self-limiting; that is, they will get
better by themselves
without any treatment. These can be 'cured' by anything, no matter how absurd -
whether you
believe in it or not.
In the cholera epidemic of the 1850s, the death rate in the London
Homoeopathic hospital was 18%
while in many others, which practised blood letting, it was 2-3 times as high.
Homoeopathic
treatment didn't do anything, but it was better then to do nothing than deplete
a sick person's
reserves of strength with leeches. But today that is not the case. Since the
discovery of sulpha drugs
in 1935, homoeopathy has been obsolete.
Most back pain is psychosomatic – produced by the brain. That is
not to say that back pain sufferers
are malingerers or 'imagine' their pain. It has been discovered that, although
many more people use
backache to obtain sick notes to excuse their not working, the actual numbers
of cases of back pain
has changed very little since the last century. Many try conventional
medicine's answer, the
physiotherapist, then an osteopath or chiropractor. A trial on several where
all these had failed, using
the newly-developed positron emitter (PET) brain scanner, discovered that areas
in their brains were
more sensitive to the pain. This, in turn, increased the tension in their back
muscles thus increasing
the severity of the pain. It was a vicious circle. What they needed was not the
manipulation they had
been getting, but simply to relax. Where manipulation had worked, whether from
conventional or
alternative medical sources, it was not the treatment itself that was found to
be beneficial – merely
the relaxation. And since an alternative therapist, charging by the hour, can
afford to spend more
time with his client, in this situation he is likely to be more successful. But
all the patient really
needs is to rest – which costs nothing.
Many of those who resort to alternative remedies do so because
conventional drugs may have
uncomfortable side effects. On the whole, there are few side effects with
alternative medicines; but
then, a treatment can't have side effects if it doesn't do anything. Most
alternative treatments are not
harmful in themselves (although some are), the real danger with these
treatments is that medically
untrained alternative practitioners may miss important symptoms and deny a
patient effective
therapy. By resorting to such dubious practices, a seriously ill person could
waste precious time so
that by the time he goes to a conventional doctor with cancer, say, it is too
late to treat it. In the USA,
an estimated $10 billion is spent annually on alternative therapy and half of
that is spent on cancer
'cures'. It is becoming a growth industry in Britain as well. It is unfortunate
that influential people,
such as the British Royal Family, help to give credence to these therapies. By so
doing, they do a grave
disservice to their subjects.
Most alternative practitioners really believe in
their products but some are
opportunist charlatans and their 'remedies' are a cruel hoax. As Beaven points
out: 'Practitioners of
alternative medicine, unfettered by regulatory standards, or any established
code of ethics take
advantage of minors and the credulous. Ethnic minorities, immigrants and
younger people are among
those who may not understand methods of access to orthodox medicine and are
particularly
vulnerable.' They prey on the gullible and the sick – a case of your money
and
your life.
NOTE: I first wrote this article in 1991. Since then there have been some changes in the alternative medical world: there is now more regulation in some of the disciplines, for example. It has also become clear that the conventional medical world is not without its own charlatans, as other papers on this and other websites demonstrate.
Also, driven by 'Big-Pharma' to make profits and, it must be said in fairness, the US FDA's insistence that all new drugs be tested at vast expense, the necessity to ensure that new 'conventional' treatment modalities manage to reach statistical significance – all that money spent would be wasted if they don't – has also biassed the other side of the medical fence towards quackery.
Under the circumstances, it seems that the best advice I can think of is for anyone who has a medical problem to check out both sides of the medical divide as widely as possible, look at the evidence for both, see which ones make more sense and are more likely to be of value, and then make their own informed decision on which way they want to go for treatment.
But I repeat, always get a qualified diagnosis first.
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Last updated 2 June 2001
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