Home

Follow Countercurrents on Twitter 

Why Subscribe ?

Popularise CC

Join News Letter

Editor's Picks

Press Releases

Action Alert

Feed Burner

Read CC In Your
Own Language

Bradley Manning

India Burning

Mumbai Terror

Financial Crisis

Iraq

AfPak War

Peak Oil

Globalisation

Localism

Alternative Energy

Climate Change

US Imperialism

US Elections

Palestine

Latin America

Communalism

Gender/Feminism

Dalit

Humanrights

Economy

India-pakistan

Kashmir

Environment

Book Review

Gujarat Pogrom

Kandhamal Violence

WSF

Arts/Culture

India Elections

Archives

Links

Submission Policy

About CC

Disclaimer

Fair Use Notice

Contact Us

Search Our Archive

Subscribe To Our
News Letter



Our Site

Web

Name: E-mail:

 

Printer Friendly Version

Toward A New Medical Science

By Peter Goodchild

30 August, 2011
Countercurrents.org

In a world of increasing population and decreasing resources, medicine in its present form is likely to become a huge anachronism. As is commonly said, it's often the case that a doctor, instead of doing something useful such as diagnosing and treating an ailment, merely signs a prescription. The "in" joke, of course, is that the doctor is the only one who can afford to buy the pills. And he's not going to prescribe anything that a cute pharmaceutical representative hasn't been dropping on his desk. But there are countries that already do better at medicine than the US and Canada. Thailand, for example, is famous for its excellent -- and relatively inexpensive -- medical care, and I was very impressed by what I saw of it in Bangkok. It seemed as though the largest group of surgery patients was from Japan; apparently the surgery is cheaper in Bangkok in spite of the costs of travel and accommodation.

Medicine will have to become less sophisticated. When I once mentioned that in the future I'd be willing to carve a set of crutches for someone with a broken leg, I was told that I could be charged with practising medicine without a license. Yes, I imagine that's true. However, it seems to me that in the coming Systemic Collapse, doctors of the present sort might become rather scarce. In countries with “socialist” medicine, such as Canada, the government funding simply won't be available. And I wonder how many doctors living at the high end of the income scale will make it into the world of “sleeping rough,” and would rather perish in suburbia rather than survive in a ditch -- as someone once said, the poorest people of the world won't have to “adjust” to the post-oil world, they've been living there all along.

The sort of medicine that will be practised will be more akin to either first aid or “wilderness medicine.” In particular, it will require the kind of doctor who can sometimes work with little or nothing in the way of ready-made instrumentation or medications. (I've been told that it might be possible to store antibiotics -- e.g., amoxicillin and cephalexin -- for years, if one could keep them cool and dark. But how common are such caches likely to be?) Those who will have the necessary skills are likely to have acquired them outside a medical school, and I doubt that the patients will waste time looking for framed diplomas.

Without high-tech instruments and medication, administering medical aid can be marvellously simple. Instead of spending years learning to identify and treat the various forms of infection caused by the many viruses, bacteria, and other micro-organisms, for example, all one has to know is that they all look roughly the same: headaches, fever, diarrhoea, nausea, and fatigue. And they all have the same treatment: isolation, rest, warmth, liquids, and nutrients.

I personally have a fondness for primitive medicine, and for years I've been practising “illegal” medicine, usually with myself as my only patient. But I'm aware of both the possibilities and the limitations. Willow bark and wintergreen (Gaultheria procumbens), for example, both contain salicates related to commercial Aspirin. On the other hand, virtually all books on herbal medicine are largely superstitious nonsense, because most such herbs have no medicinal value.

We need to know the genuine extent of “primitive” medicine. Some of the North American Indians, particularly the Ojibwa, even practised surgery to a limited extent, but I would think that's pushing the limits. One of the main lessons we'll all learn is that any medical problem will either go away or kill you – in either case, there will be nothing further to worry about. Seriously though, most problems do go away, as anyone stuck for years in an “undeveloped” country will attest. The other lesson will be that of the value of physical fitness: in any reasonably wealthy country there really is no excuse, even at the present time, for a lack of proper diet and exercise – and walking doesn't cost a penny.

Where I tend to be somewhat disloyal to the cause of primitive techniques is in what might be called “deep medicine.” Over the centuries, medical science has found more and more complexity to the human body. I wouldn't try tampering with hormones for the same reason I wouldn't try replacing the automatic transmission on a car – I just don't have the capacity to do it. For that matter, I don't even support the legalization of “alternative medicine,” because to a large extent it preys upon both the fears and the gullibility of the sick and the dying, and to take money from a cancer patient by such fraudulent means is merely an indirect form of murder. A new form of medicine does need to arise, but it must get rid of its “outsider” mentality and create a genuine science for the coming hard times.

Peter Goodchild is the author of Survival Skills of the North American Indians, published by Chicago Review Press. His email address is odonatus{at}live.com or prjgoodchild{at}gmail.com


 



 


Comments are not moderated. Please be responsible and civil in your postings and stay within the topic discussed in the article too. If you find inappropriate comments, just Flag (Report) them and they will move into moderation que.