(This is part- 4 of my earlier article, WAKE UP NOW OR PERISH – Humanity in the hands of unscientific medicine and a fraudulent health industry)
From the beginnings of civilisation, there have been healers to cure illnesses. Sumerians and Egyptians had their health care practices, that was modern medicine for them. Egyptians trained the doctors at the temple of Imhotep. Indus valley and Mycenaeans had their health systems. Later Greeks and Indians had built up robust ways to treat diseases. In the ancient universities of Nalanda and Taxila, medicine was taught intensively for years (Ayurveda). Later, Greek medicine slowly morphed into Roman medicine through Galen (1st century AD)
All these systems of medicine, though varied, have a holistic approach as the essence. Health was synchronised with the unity of mind and body. The practice of Ayurveda was well oriented towards holism, except in its surgical procedures. All these ancient medicines were modern at the period, like the conventional modern medicine of today. Definitely people died all along due to natural diseases, but at no point of time too many people died of iatrogenic diseases, as it happens today. At no point in history so many people died of side effects of drugs as today. At no point in history too many people became sick and died (renal failure, liver failure, cancer etc.) due to the side effects of drugs as today.
All these started with the advancement of medical science under Cartesian duality (mind – body parallelism) and Newtonian objectivity and predictability as the purpose. Conventional medicine always claims that it is evidence based without understanding where the concept of ‘evidence based’ had its origins. Indeed it originated from Physics. Cartesian dualism is valid in the process of inquiries of the physical world. In the inquiries about the nature of the physical world (science) it is imperative to keep the subjectivity of the observer unprejudiced in observation and conclusion (Lord Bacon). Later Paracelsus contributed much by integrating the analysis of body fluids (blood, sputum, urine and stool) for clinical diagnosis.
The theories of Descartes, Newton and Bacon propelled the speed of scientific advancement in Europe in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. But medical science was lagging behind as it is much more complex than the mechanical non living world. The difficult question of the modern world was how to holistically integrate the phenomenon of the mind-body complex in health and in disease. With the ‘capitalist dictated’ report of Abraham Flexener in 1910, the modern world decided to study the tissues, organs and systems of the human body as true realities of existence conveniently side lining or rather ignoring the mind. We must understand that today’s conventional modern medicine owes its fatherhood to a mediocre health administrator and unsuccessful politician who were employed by capitalists with an agenda. Mediocre intelligence never created any scientific or philosophical system long lasting in human history.
Leaving holism (integral being) in lurch, conventional medicine advanced fast to reach heights. This system attracted the best and brilliant minds in biology in the last one century owing to its appeal in social upliftment, economic benefits and a false prestige of superiority attached to this system. Barring a few, the majority of conventional physicians never realised that all the chemical formulas used in health care from acetaminophen (paracetamol), antibiotics, steroids, to chemotherapeutic agents are systematically depriving the human immune system built over a million year. Many well intentioned conventional doctors feel this pain and they try to integrate their learning with homeopathy or other holistic systems and successfully cure patients. Many others completely switch over to homeopathy. There are thousands of conventional modern medicine doctors practising homeopathy around the world, qualified in homeopathy, in addition to their degree in conventional modern medicine.
It is very sad to note that the brilliant doctors of conventional medicine were perpetually exploited by the chemical intensive pharma industry to promote sales and marketing of their products time and again. Doctors who sensed the unethical ways of the pharma industry and dangers posed to the human immune system by these approaches and dared to question them were threatened using bodies like IMA and silenced eventually by hook or crook. Majority of conventional physicians live on with their profession, treating patients but never curing a single chronic patient (Diabetes, hypertension, psoriasis, hypothyroidism, Addison’s disease, migraine, allergic disorders, autoimmune disorders, cancers etc.). But the powerful pharma industry and professional associations reinforce their medical school learning that they are the only true scientific medicine and all other systems of medicine are outdated and unscientific. It is like the religions who falsely claim that spiritual enlightenment is only through their sect. Today’s modern medicine is trying to inculcate a cult order rather than open ended inquiry misusing the word ‘science’. As sufficient job opportunities and social respect is sustained, doctors generally do not bother much about the world beyond their narrow precincts of existence. I have seen many of my friends in conventional medicine get perplexed and confused when they see the patients whom they could never cure, get completely cured with homeopathy, ayurveda, other AYUSH systems or any other science of medicine. But we should remember that all these intelligent conventional doctors are also ordinary citizens at one end, who spent the best part of their life learning, learning and learning. Denying years of effort and re-learning is very difficult and many times impossible. It seems all are in an enclosure difficult to peep over.
Why did the effort of thousands of brilliant minds fail to achieve curative results in conventional modern medicine?
Every medical student entering into a medical school at the end of teenage is not a philosopher or scientist or a mature mind. She/ He is only a student taught as per the syllabus and curriculum of the medical school. They are learning and writing exams perpetually for years even without having time for any entertainment. This perpetual learning moulds them as skilled workers of modern medicine without critical thinking and alternative thoughts. The Abraham Flexener report (1910) recommended the syllabi and curriculum of Johns Hopkins as the best model, which never had any provision for critical thinking and learning of history of medicine as an integral part of human civilization. Its self proclaimed aura of superiority based on learning starts with Anatomy and Physiology, ending in clinical Medicine slowly spread around the world as a standard model. Even during my graduation in homeopathic medical college, I had gone through the same model.
Everything was exciting and optimistic in conventional modern medicine till the discovery of DNA in 1953. This discovery opened up a totally new area of subtlety hitherto unknown to the world of medicine. There was no possibility to integrate the then used medicines into this new discovery, so the medical industry conveniently ignored them for half a century, till 2000. After the genetic decoding in 2000, the science of genetics, epigenetics and immunogenetics started redefining the horizons of knowledge in medicine. The science of conventional modern medicine and its industry found incapable to do anything at this situation. The cause of diseases shifted from the gross cellular and biochemical level to the nano scale of genetics. The basic rule of the game is changed! Old ways and means will never work any more.
This situation created an existential crisis for the monstrous and complex industry of conventional medicine. Doctors treating patients at hospitals or clinics daily are mostly not aware of this existential crisis of so-called modern medicine. It is like the employees in the Kodak film industry in 2001. They could never imagine the 113 year old company with a film based camera and the powerful industry would close down within a couple of years and make them jobless.
To be continued……..
