From: des@helix.nih.gov (David E. Scheim)
Subject: Re: On pre-scientific traditions of medicine (was: Use of term allopath)
Organization: NIH
Distribution: sci
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 20:56:07 GMT

In article <16100@pitt.UUCP> geb@dsl.pitt.edu (gordon e. banks) writes:

>In article <1992Aug17.212548.24748@alw.nih.gov> des@helix.nih.gov (David E. Scheim) writes:
>>proposed medical procedures, nor that many "alternative" cures are not in
>>fact quackery.  I just believe it advisable to form opinions on such
>>approaches on a case by case basis with an open mind with some knowledge of
>>the data that have been amassed.  -- David Scheim.

>The examples you cited, David, are cases where new scientific hypotheses,
>arrived at using scientific methods by scientists did not meet with
>universal, or even widespread, acceptance.  Science does tend to be
>conservative and to initially reject radical new ideas.  However, in
>the cases you mention, the evidence was presented in such a manner as
>it could be tested and the hypotheses were falsifiable.  In such cases,
>if the hypotheses are true, there is a high likelihood that eventually
>they will become part of the body of scientific knowledge.  Contrast
>this with the "alternative medicine" schemes we are talking about,
>which are almost never the product of scientific investigation by
>scientists (Linus Paulin excepted) but are money making schemes put forth by
>private medical doctors or unlicensed lay practitioners.  The discoverer
>of penicillin didn't start out marketing it himself and making all sorts
>of claims about it.  He started in the lab and it didn't get out of
>the lab until it had been proven.  

>Are you the David Scheim who wrote "Contract on America"?

>-- 
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Gordon Banks  N3JXP      | "Skepticism is the chastity of the intellect, and
>geb@cadre.dsl.pitt.edu   |  it is shameful to surrender it too soon." 
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------

In a biography of Alexander Fleming I just picked up, I noticed a reference 
to a woman who had been using a folk remedy involving cultivation
and ingestion of a mold.  Her friends from the village were 
said to have flocked to her home to get some of this concoction for their 
maladies.

Whether this is a true incident or not, this anectote and the 
discovery of penicillin certainly indicates the possibility of effective 
treatments being derived and passed down through means outside the 
laboratory culture, whose mechanisms may not be understood by the 
science of their day, that may nevertheless be effective.  If by alternative 
medicine, you encompass such remedies, or those of scientists that have been 
ignored by the prevailing medical establishment due to predjudices or 
politics, not objective failures, I cannot a priori call them quacks.  If 
you are defining alternative medicine to mean remedies offered by people 
whose primary objective is financial gain and who refuse to allow such 
remedies to be objectively tested, then I would agree with you that all such 
practitioners are quacks.

  To reiterate, I advocate keeping an open mind, not dropping the guard of 
skeptism, from such alternative approaches.

BTW, yes, I am the author of Contract on America, from which I learned to 
heed Marcus Aurelius' recommendation of "careful inquiry in all matters of 
deliberation, " never satisfaction "with appearances which first present 
themselves."

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