Veil of Fire

Kally: "The only thing that separates a poison from a remedy is the dosage." - Paracelcus

I'm sure if you took it in a tincture, you know, where its medical properties were first documented (for treatment of Dropsy), you know, that substance that CAN'T WORK, it's probably diluted enough not to kill you.

Jon: Of course. Because it's "just stupid", right? That someone can't make money off of a plant and therefore won't spend money to see if it beats the drugs they DO make money off of, then tell the rest of the world that their cash cow is unnecessary? How far fetched can we get, right? Right?

I love, just LOVE, how some people claim to be such wonderfully logical thinkers, and then proceed to reject ideas because they "sound stupid".

Of course, the answer must be that drug companies and testing facilities are just... what? LAZY? That they haven't decided to answer once and for all whether Ginko actually can treat Alzhiemers, or whether Fleabane really is an effective treatment/cure for Gonorrhea? I mean, a lot of these things would be serious medical breakthroughs if they worked! Why don't they get off their asses and find out?

It can't be because of money... it must just be that they haven't gotten around to it yet. Yeah, that's it. They haven't gotten around to finding out if play X really cures diabetes like the south american shamans say it does. They're too busy patenting Viagara! I'm SURE they'll get around to it any day now!

Veil of Fire

Kally: No, better, let's throw out plants entirely! Who needs 'em?? Chop down all the Pacific Yew for paper, we don't REALLY need Taxol! And who honestly needs Vinblastine? We can make that in a lab! ...oh, wait, we can't, but that's not important. Plant medicine is all a bunch of hooey, Vinblastine can't POSSIBLY treat ANYTHING, even allergies, much less cancer! It comes straight from a plant with almost no modifications (the patent is on the extraction process)! It MUST be 100% useless!

Mad Kally

I love, just LOVE, the argument from ignorance!

Veil of Fire

Moral of this story: If it doesn't come with a fancy label, a list of side effects and interactions as long as your arm, a big pharmasutical company's logo on it, and cost $12 a pill, it's completely worthless.

Veil of Fire

Right, because anyone who thinks a plant cures anything at all HAS to be the dumbest primative on the face of the planet. I gotcha.

Gurdur

Harold Klawans tells the true story of a cupping gone wrong.

Patient, a very elderly man, lands in hospital with mild delusions and persecution ideation.

Delusions and whatnot eventually found to be the result of a mild fever resulting from an abcess in one toe; once the abcess was healed, the fever abated and the delusions and whatnot disappeared.

However, while all the doctors were trying to find out what was wrong with him, they also discovered a number of circular lesions with punctate bleeding, each about 3" in diameter, scattered over the patient's abdomen.
They couldn't work out what that resulted from at all, so they called in a specialist to do biopsies on the lesions.

Specialist was cutting / biopsing away, when a passing-by Jewish neurologist took one look and said (in Yiddish and then in English),
"Hey, what you're doing is as useful as cupping a corpse". (*)

What the neurologist had recognised, and what came out after the patient had been treated for his fever and could talk coherently again, was that the patient had been treating himself and his fever hitherto (before landing in hospital) by cupping himself, i.e. heating up a glass and holding it against the skin to induce bleeding, an old folk remedy.

___________

(*) an old Yiddish saying.

[ May 20, 2002: Message edited by: Gurdur ]</p>

Gurdur

*snicker*

I once knew a bloke (an American) who walked nervously into a VD clinic and was diagnosed as having a pregnant thigh, no treatment necessary.

OTOH, while this is a very funny and also very true story, no-one seems interested in my stories, so I'll just mosey on out of this thread and let you Americans fight it out between you.

Veil of Fire

Gurdur: No, I'm sure they LOVE your stories. Your anecdotal evidence is woth much more than anyone else's, because your stories support their side. Bree's anecdotal evidence should be rebuffed completely, because it's just placebo effect, tho.

Gurdur

*snicker*

My stories support no side at all, they are simply true stories.
They are not anecdotal evidence; they are simply true stories.

One of my prof's used to regale me with the times that the anaethesist had made a mistake, and given a patient about to be operated the curare (to relax the muscles), and then forgotten to give the anaesthetic.

The result was that the patient was fully conscious throughout the operation, able to feel everything, but was unable to move a muscle --- including speech muscles.

Happened several times.
______

BTW, I prefer not to be dragged into arguments unless I feel like arguing.
Leave me out of it this once, please.

[ May 20, 2002: Message edited by: Gurdur ]</p>

bonduca

Screw the argument, I want to hear the stories.