Elizabethan World view Debate

Cancer and other degenerate diseases weren't an issue at a time when people lived, on average, 35 years.  Cancer mostly affects people over the age of 50.  While you can get cancer at a younger age, it's less common.  Not impossible, but unlikely.  So the population was far more likely to die of other causes and other diseases than Cancer and even if they DID die of cancer, how would they know?  It wasn't common practice to do an autopsy on someone after they die.  In fact, the only way they knew (or thought they knew) that someone died was to do a Wake.  The tradition of a wake prior to funerals was created to ensure that the person really was dead.  They would lie them on a table in the middle of the home for 3 days.  If they didn't wake up, they were declared dead and buried.  Some of them woke up in their graves as indicated by scratch marks on the inside of the coffins during the body moving of the time.  Yes, to save free up graveyard space they moved bodies out of individual graves and into mass graves.

I also took a look at the books you linked on Amazon.  They're by the same author.  I went to this person's website and right there on the front page is a disclaimer saying that the information on the site is for "educational purposes only" and that you should consult your physician.  Sounds to me like she doesn't believe in it either.  But I suspect you'll claim it's because of the evil science that would try to discredit and destroy her legally if she didn't protect herself yet I ask, why would she need protection if it worked?



Anyway, tribal medicine is not, by itself, incompatible with modern medicine.  However, modern medicine is a refined form.  Me and my friend were having this discussion last week.

In Ancient Egypt, it was a practice to apply honey to a wound.  Modern medicine, however, doesn't apply honey but rather the chemical IN honey that helps.  Modern medicine takes an herb and finds out what in that herb gives the effect and uses that in a pure form rather than a mix of other herbs that may not help at all. 
Modern medicine also uses bacteria, germs, and viruses to help explain illnesses which makes a lot more sense.  The 4 Humors don't exactly tell you how a family can get sick at roughly the same time during winter.  After all, how do they transfer phlegm to one another to produce an imbalance in everyone?

But incidences among children has risen considerably since the earlier 1900s and even 1970s^[1] That's not just overall numbers, but % of U.S. population. In this case, living longer doesn't matter.
[1] Cure search org, children's cancer research division

Before Clocktower posts, I just wanna say I'm not necessarily disagreeing with any poster in this thread. I just think there's many more factors to consider and answers aren't as straight foward as some would think.

But incidences among children has risen considerably since the earlier 1900s and even 1970s^[1] That's not just overall numbers, but % of U.S. population. In this case, living longer doesn't matter.
[1] Cure search org, children's cancer research division

Are you making a conclusion? Remember correlation is not causation.

Quote from: Ichimaru Gin :] on August 27, 2010, 07:52:50 PM

But incidences among children has risen considerably since the earlier 1900s and even 1970s^[1] That's not just overall numbers, but % of U.S. population. In this case, living longer doesn't matter.
[1] Cure search org, children's cancer research division

Are you making a conclusion? Remember correlation is not causation.

I'm sorry for concluding that past ages/societies of men had lifespans that exceeded childhood.

But incidences among children has risen considerably since the earlier 1900s and even 1970s^[1] That's not just overall numbers, but % of U.S. population. In this case, living longer doesn't matter.
[1] Cure search org, children's cancer research division

True.  But the number of children dying from other things has decreased as well.  So the more children living the more chance they'll get something else.  

Clocktower I have split off a new thread
http://www.theflatearthsociety.org/forum/index.php?topic=41988.0
Noticeably outside of the upper fora.
Consider this a warning. Continuing to post in threads intentionally looking to only create fights when there aren't any AND having no intention of adding to the discussion is against the rules. This is not the only thread you have done this in tonight.

But incidences among children has risen considerably since the earlier 1900s and even 1970s^[1] That's not just overall numbers, but % of U.S. population. In this case, living longer doesn't matter.
[1] Cure search org, children's cancer research division

Incidences has risen considerably since 1900s? Compared to what? Most common cancer - leukemia, was discovered at the end of 19th century and I am not sure that there are any adequate statistics from the beginning of 20th century. There were quite many wars then and not good medical care and I don't think that anyone counted the child leukemia cases. Or any other cancer cases.

I certainly would like to know what the "four humors" explanation would be for the ruptured appendix I had last summer.  Seeing as appendicitis is very common, they must have one.  Also, please explain how I was able to recover even though all I got for two weeks were IV antibiotics and saline? No herbs or acupuncture then.

Since I don't see that anyone claimed the humoral medicine is opposed to genuine progress, I conclude that you're attacking a straw-man.

I did get that impression from the posts of Lord Dave.  
If no one here is opposed to humoural medicine, then our disagreements are actually rather limited.

Let's go over the facts here, 17 November claims that people don't live longer with modern medicine. I provided one limited example which showed that statement to be false.

This is false.  Clinging exclusively to your own prejudiced interpretation, you ignored the post-World War II resurgence of traditional medicine.  The effect of this resurgence is striking in any country.  China is a good example.  The imposition of British medicine in China during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries caused a horrendous decline in Chinese health which was resuscitated in the twentieth century by Traditional Chinese Medicine courtesy of the Maoists.

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005140.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy

I do not believe these statistics.  Even if an average lifespan of 38 years were true in 1850, then it is due to the medical establishment which had become very corrupt by the eighteenth century.  Even in the early 1600's, the traditional herbalist William Culpeper was maligned by the medical establishment in England.

Ah, so when the facts prove you wrong, claim a conspiracy.

Ah, so when the facts prove you wrong, claim a conspiracy.

Conspiracy is aside from the point.

The point is the validity of those alleged facts.  I have read a lot of history - primary sources like Roman history and others.  It is my hobby.  Whenever I come across references to peoples' lifespans in those histories it almost always blatantly contradicts what some people today claim about allegedly very short lives back then.  Anybody can go fabricate anything they want, and I think that is exactly what has happened with your sources.  What is their source, for example, that the average age of a man in the time of Caesar Augustus was only 28 years?  And why was Alexander the Great's life span of only 33 years referred to in all the ancient sources as tragically short?

The reason is very simple - your sources are false because they have no correspondence with evidence, especially in ancient times.  The dictum of 70 to 80 years in the Book of Psalms is corroborated by contemporary non-biblical sources.

I certainly would like to know what the "four humors" explanation would be for the ruptured appendix I had last summer.  Seeing as appendicitis is very common, they must have one.  Also, please explain how I was able to recover even though all I got for two weeks were IV antibiotics and saline? No herbs or acupuncture then.

I confess that I have just become interested in humoural medicine largely as a response to "LordDave's" thread. Therefore, since I am obviously not an expert myself, I will quote something by a published humoural medic which does apply to your question in a general way.

On page 29 of the 'Traditional Healer' by Hakim Chishti, we read:

"The invention of the microscope has taken us away from the source and origin of the problems associated with disease.  For example, most physicians would attribute an infection to one or more bacteria and will produce actual living specimens of those bacteria which they say caused such and such an infection.  From the Unani Tibb point of view, the deviation from the normal state of the humour provided a suitable environment for the bacteria to grow to larger than normal populations.  While admitting the existence of the bacteria, the Tibb scientist must look deeper to the cause of the imbalance in the humour and its characteristic temperaments.  Thus, the mode of current medical practice that "attacks" the red- and white-cell-forming organs does not take into account the fact that blood itself is living and not simply a conglomerate of chemical components."

"Thus in Tibb, the dictum "Health is a harmony of the humours" is the only valid point of view if one desires to cure the cause of the disease.  Chemical destruction of the abnormal growth of microscopic life may result in a temporary decline or total eradication of the population of microorganisms, but if the imbalance of the humour is not corrected, the disease will recur or arise in another place in the body.  More important, the dramatic effects of the chemical drugs themselves on the humours result in new imbalances, as evidenced by the many so-called side-effects of drugs..."

http://www.amazon.com/Traditional-Comprehensive-Principles-Practice-Medicine/dp/B000M51WZ0/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1283542505&sr=1-3

EDIT:

I want to add that emergency medicine is one of the most legitimate and impressive achievements of modern western medicine.
And appendicitis is a form of medical emergency.

Quote from: 17 November on August 26, 2010, 05:36:51 AM

I should add that bleeding is not an aspect of Hippocratic medicine.  The pagan physician Galen, who lived many centuries after Hippocrates, did accept the four humours, but he unfortunately introduced the practice of bleeding into Greek and Roman medicine - analogous to how the pagan astronomer Claudius Ptolemy promoted globularism during that same time.  

Not to stray too far off topic, but I just wanted to let you guys know that there are some conditions where bleeding is a legitimate therapy in modern medicine.  One of those conditions is called polycythemia.  It's a condition where the body makes too many red blood cells.  Left untreated, polycythemia can lead to some significant heath issues.  However, the preferred treatment is periodic phlebotomy (therapeutic blood donation) when the hemocrit level reaches a certain point.

This is a reasonable point.  By giving heed to Will Allen (who is a farmer rather than a physician)
instead of experienced humoural physicians, I was perhaps a bit harsh on Galen.  
I should remember that "In the multitude of counsel, there is safety."

Right, let's get this straight. A lot of modern medicine is a more refined form of traditional herbal remedies. Now, a lot of these herbal remedies didn't work and were dropped as we grew more knowledgeable. What did work, however, became modern medicine. I really don't see what the problem is.

Also, my school has strong links with Weleda, a homeopathic/herbal medicine company. I have used some, and for the most part it doesn't work, so I don't know where 17 November is getting his ideas from.

Quote from: General Disarray on September 03, 2010, 11:35:44 AM

Ah, so when the facts prove you wrong, claim a conspiracy.

Conspiracy is aside from the point.

The point is the validity of those alleged facts.  I have read a lot of history - primary sources like Roman history and others.  It is my hobby.  Whenever I come across references to peoples' lifespans in those histories it almost always blatantly contradicts what some people today claim about allegedly very short lives back then.  Anybody can go fabricate anything they want, and I think that is exactly what has happened with your sources.  What is their source, for example, that the average age of a man in the time of Caesar Augustus was only 28 years?  And why was Alexander the Great's life span of only 33 years referred to in all the ancient sources as tragically short?

The reason is very simple - your sources are false because they have no correspondence with evidence, especially in ancient times.  The dictum of 70 to 80 years in the Book of Psalms is corroborated by contemporary non-biblical sources.

Why wouldn't it be tragically short?  He was "The Great" and you don't want great men to die.  Anything would be tragically short for him, especially if he didn't finish his life's work.

Not from homeopathy which has often justly been criticized for prescribing medicines without active ingredients.  Homeopathy is a modern alternative school of thought that emerged from western civilization due to corruption of official medicine.  Homeopathy's strength is its criticisms of the modern medical establishment, but its own medicines are often weak, and its philosophy is shallow compared to tried and true systems like Unani, TCM, and Ayurveda.

Thank you 17 for showing us just how biased you are.  You'd promote any system which criticizes modern medicine even if it's weak and shallow.  Sounds like you've had bad experiences with modern medicine and have decided that it's evil.

Also, my school has strong links with Weleda, a homeopathic/herbal medicine company. I have used some, and for the most part it doesn't work, so I don't know where 17 November is getting his ideas from.

Not from homeopathy which has often justly been criticized for prescribing medicines without active ingredients. Homeopathy is a modern alternative school of thought that emerged from western civilization due to corruption of official medicine.  Homeopathy's strength is its criticisms of the modern medical establishment, but its own medicines are often weak, and its philosophy is shallow compared to tried and true systems like Unani, TCM, and Ayurveda.

A lot of modern medicine is a more refined form of traditional herbal remedies.

This is wrong.  Chemicals like penicillin are artificial and very different from herbal medicine.

a lot of these herbal remedies didn't work and were dropped as we grew more knowledgeable.

This is completely false.  Herbal remedies were abandoned due to ignorance.  Many forms of charlatanism like the snake oil salesmen did exist in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.  Much of this was fortunately abandoned, but you equate this with herbal medicine, and you equate artificial chemicals with herbs.  Your sweeping and very erroneous generalizations should be ignored because you are obviously very ignorant of medicine. Next time think or research at least a little before you make an assertion.

If you are going to attack what I say, then please at least read it.  For example, you seem to have completely bypassed this post when you asserted that modern medicine is essentially an advanced form of traditional herbal medicine:
http://www.theflatearthsociety.org/forum/index.php?topic=41927.msg1047580#msg1047580

If you don't mind my asking, are you muslim by any chance?  In the event that your are, then you are attacking your own tradition of medicine.

Why wouldn't it be tragically short?  He was "The Great" and you don't want great men to die.  Anything would be tragically short for him, especially if he didn't finish his life's work.

Thank you for starting this thread.  Even if we disagree, I appreciate your comments.  This particular one I am going to ignore because it is grasping after straws.  All the evidence I have ever read is consistent across the field of history - and not limited to one or two men.

Thank you 17 for showing us just how biased you are.  You'd promote any system which criticizes modern medicine even if it's weak and shallow.  Sounds like you've had bad experiences with modern medicine and have decided that it's evil.

I do not promote homeopathy or any system which is weak and shallow.  I try to retain the good elements from all systems including homeopathy and modern medicine. 

Here I give credit to the modern use of chemicals where it is effective:

Chemical destruction of the abnormal growth of microscopic life may result in a temporary decline or total eradication of the population of microorganisms ...

And here I criticize an alternative form of medicine which many have found wanting:

Not from homeopathy which has often justly been criticized for prescribing medicines without active ingredients...but its own medicines are often weak, and its philosophy is shallow compared to tried and true systems like Unani, TCM, and Ayurveda.

It just so happens that Hippocratic medicine has never been surpassed by any other system.  As far as I can tell, short of miraculous healing from God, the best any new medical system can hope to achieve is to imitate Hippocrates, and that is exactly what Avicenna and the muslims achieved.

Quote from: Lorddave on September 03, 2010, 02:28:18 PM

Thank you 17 for showing us just how biased you are.  You'd promote any system which criticizes modern medicine even if it's weak and shallow.  Sounds like you've had bad experiences with modern medicine and have decided that it's evil.

I do not promote homeopathy or any system which is weak and shallow.  I try to retain the good elements from all systems including modern medicine. 

Here I give credit to the modern use of chemicals where it is effective:

Quote from: 17 November on September 03, 2010, 12:36:23 PM

Chemical destruction of the abnormal growth of microscopic life may result in a temporary decline or total eradication of the population of microorganisms ...

And here I criticize an alternative form of medicine which many have found wanting:

Quote from: 17 November on September 03, 2010, 02:28:36 PM

Not from homeopathy which has often justly been criticized for prescribing medicines without active ingredients...but its own medicines are often weak, and its philosophy is shallow compared to tried and true systems like Unani, TCM, and Ayurveda.

It just so happens that Hippocratic medicine has never been surpassed by any other system.  As far as I can tell, short of miraculous healing from God, the best any new medical system can hope to achieve is to imitate Hippocrates, and that is exactly what Avicenna and the muslims achieved.

I'm still curious on the "appendicitis" with regards to the Elizabethan world view.  Is that an imbalance that's solved by cutting out an organ?  How does your medicine deal with that?

As for Hippocratese, yes he was a great healer for his time, no question there.  However, to put him on such a high pedestal and say that he was able to heal better than modern medicine is preposterous.

As for Penicillin being an artificial drug, you really should read up more on it.

from the wiki page:

However, several others reported the bacteriostatic effects of Penicillium  earlier than Fleming. The use of bread with a blue mould (presumably penicillium) as a means of treating suppurating wounds was a staple of folk medicine in Europe since the Middle Ages. The first published reference appears in the publication of the Royal Society in 1875, by John Tyndall.[13] Ernest Duchesne  documented it in an 1897 paper, which was not accepted by the Institut Pasteur because of his youth. In March 2000, doctors at the San Juan de Dios Hospital in San Jos?, Costa Rica published the manuscripts of the Costa Rican scientist and medical doctor Clodomiro (Clorito) Picado Twight (1887?1944). They reported Picado's observations on the inhibitory actions of fungi of the genus Penicillium between 1915 and 1927. Picado reported his discovery to the Paris Academy of Sciences, yet did not patent it, even though his investigations started years before Fleming's. Joseph Lister was experimenting with penicillum in 1871 for his Aseptic surgery. He found that it weakened the microbes but then he dismissed the fungi.

Penicillin is from a naturally occurring fungus.  Modern medicine is about taking out the fungus and keeping only what works: The drug.
A good analogy would be the history of aspirin.

For the record, if someone has a heart attack, for example, and a practitioner of conventional medicine who only knows of anti-biotics, etc. is the only help available, then by all means avail his help.  I am not quite as ridiculous as some of you try to make it appear.

I'm still curious on the "appendicitis" with regards to the Elizabethan world view.  Is that an imbalance that's solved by cutting out an organ?  How does your medicine deal with that?

May suggest that the crudeness of the idea of organ removal might be an indication of bias.

Answer: First, please read what I earlier quoted by Chishti in answer to your question.
Second, no.  Organ removal would not be the way.
Third, since I am not an expert as I earlier said, I defer to David Osborn's website for further information.
Check out his sections on 'Basic Principles' and 'Physiology' for example:
http://www.greekmedicine.net/b_p/basic_principles_of_greek_medicine.html
http://www.greekmedicine.net/physiology/Physiology.html

While I doubt you'll bother, here are several of the extant works of Hippocrates:
http://classics.mit.edu/Browse/browse-Hippocrates.html

If you want to find specifically detailed information on appendicitis, then the traditional name for it is apparently "cholera morbus" according to this glossary of Graeco-Arabic medicine:
http://www.traditionalmedicine.net.au/glossary.htm

If you seriously wanted more detail on this specific question, then I suggest you might e-mail the following:
http://www.traditionalmedicine.net.au/graecarb.htm#info
http://www.unani.com/

As for Hippocratese, ... to put him on such a high pedestal and say that he was able to heal better than modern medicine is preposterous.

You repeat your fallacy of judging a matter by its antiquity.

As for Penicillin being an artificial drug, you really should read up more on it.

Penicillin is from a naturally occurring fungus.  Modern medicine is about taking out the fungus and keeping only what works: The drug.
A good analogy would be the history of aspirin.

All this is accurate.  The point I was making about penicillin is that Penicillin is a chemical and a the widespread use of Penicillin in the late 1940's was paralleled by the abandonment of herbs.

I do not promote homeopathy or any system which is weak and shallow.  I try to retain the good elements from all systems including homeopathy and modern medicine. 

You know, you get good results sometimes with placebo also. But it doesn't mean that it is the placebo medicine itself that actually cures people. These alternative medicines just don't get the consistent results with the same illness and with different people. Modern medicine doesn't get it also in some cases but it's still more effective and more consistent than alternative medicines. Say what you want but modern medicine cures people in more cases than alternative medicine.

As good as this thread has been, 'The Elizabethan World View' covers a lot more than just medicine.

Agriculture is a comparable ancient and honorable vocation which the toxicity of the modern world has runied.
Will Allen has written perhaps the best history and denunciation of chemical agriculture over the past one hundred fifty years.

'The War on Bugs'
By Will Allen
http://www.chelseagreen.com/bookstore/item/the_war_on_bugs:paperback

Similarly Mark Schapiro has written an expose of the toxicity of most modern everyday goods which most of the world has realized are hazardous due to the chemicals within.
http://www.chelseagreen.com/bookstore/item/exposed:hardcover

 I don't even try to deny that there are problems with current world but wanting to go back and start using old ways doesn't make world better place(I even doubt that it was very good in these old times) . You should invest more in discovering the new and harmless ways to do things instead of burrowing itself in the old books and talking how good the old ways are and how bad the current ones are.

You should invest more in discovering the new and harmless ways to do things instead of burrowing itself in the old books and talking how good the old ways are and how bad the current ones are.

Spoken like a true homeopath.  Homeopathy is harmless, but it is also not very effective.  That is the best that your recommendation could hope to achieve.  You are worse than homeopaths because you ignorantly condemn the good.  At least homeopaths are too cautious to do something that stupid.

Quote from: zork on September 03, 2010, 05:13:49 PM

You should invest more in discovering the new and harmless ways to do things instead of burrowing itself in the old books and talking how good the old ways are and how bad the current ones are.

Spoken like a true homeopath.  Homeopathy is harmless, but it is also not very effective.  That is the best that your recommendation could hope to achieve.  You are worse than homeopaths because you ignorantly condemn the good.  At least homeopaths are too cautious to do something that stupid.

Spoken like a quack! Any treatment that gives false hope, like homeopathy, harms.

Spoken like a quack! Any treatment that gives false hope, like homeopathy, harms.

Spoken like one wise in his own conceit whom no amount of truth or evidence will ever convince.