From: green@island.COM (Robert Greenstein)
Subject: Re: Use of term allopath
Organization: Strawman Incorporated
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1992 21:31:49 GMT

In article <1992Jul20.231749.14611@spdcc.com> dyer@spdcc.com (Steve Dyer) writes:
>In article <1992Jul20.201812.7031@island.COM> green@island.COM (Robert Greenstein) writes:
>>Antibiotics are the exception, rather than the rule. Most allopathic
>>treatments are geared toward maintenance, rather than cure. Examples
>>of this include diabetes, most forms of heart disease, asthma, arthritis, etc.
>
>Right, as opposed to your "alternative therapies", which can only
>"cure" neurotic somaticization and hypochondria.  There is NO evidence
>that such approaches are anything more than worthless in the diseases
>you list, or for that matter in any other disease.

Now there is a generalization for you. It seems that your definition of
alternative medicine is anything the MD's don't approve of. Sure, there
are quack therapies, but the alternatives I am talking about include
Chinese and auyervedic medicine for which there are massive amounts of
research available if you only bother to look. The same is true to a
lesser extent for homeopathy. These therapies have been much more successful
in treating many diseases for which modern medicine is almost a complete
failure. A good example of this is asthma, which is killing more and
more people every year. What's the conventional solution? Theodur and
prednisone. Not very satisfactory. Chinese medicine can cure, yes cure,
patients with this condition using acupuncture and herbs. Many people
have been able to throw their inhalers in the trash basket after receiving
such "worthless" treatments. This is one example. The list is endless.

>Modern medicine aims towards cure when such is possible, maintenance when 
>its not yet in our grasp to cure.  Since "curing" someone means first
>understanding what is going wrong with an individual (which itself
>implies that we have to understand what is happening when things
>are working well), such "cures" have to track our knowledge of
>the human body, and every bit of progress simply shines the light
>a little further into unexplored territory.

If modern medicine aims to cure, it hasn't done a very good job. Sure, many
epidemic diseases have been virtually eliminated, but once again, its 
mainly due to antibiotics. Eliminate them, and the record is quite poor.
On the other hand, allopathic medicine is quite good at maintaining
disease, since that's where the money is. Isn't it much better to have
AIDS patients sucking down AZT for the rest of their short lives than actually
cure the disease? I can hear those cash registers ringing.

>
>Oh, and as for cures, you forgot your favorite, cancer chemotherapy.
>Depending on the cancer, objective cures are certainly possible.
>I would not be at all surprised if something closely approaching a
>"cure" will be found for diabetes in the next 20-30 years, and
>very likely for many autoimmune diseases such as asthma and
>arthritis.

When have I heard that before?
-- 
******************************************************************************
Robert Greenstein           What the fool cannot learn he laughs at, thinking
green@island.com            that by his laughter he shows superiority instead
                            of latent idiocy - M. Corelli
Newsgroups: sci.med