tjs@cbdkc1.UUCP ( Tom Stanions) (05/08/85)
<<<<<<>>>>>> Let me try and explain one or two differences between African (and other natural) medicines and conventional medicine. Rich Goldschmidt expressed the following opinion about the African/Natural/Western forms of medicine: >I was not convinced of the difference between "African medicine" and >"Western medicine" by the example Wale gave here. A common class of drugs ^^^^^ >used in chemotherapy (which block cell division) are related to either >colchicine or vinblastine both of which are derived from plants. The ^^^^^^^^^^^ >herbal treatments provided may have had a similar mechanism. You'll >have to find a better example ... However in his article he in included references to the following text from Carter Bullard: >Actually, modern medicine is extremely interested in African traditionalist >medical techniques. The NSF( the national science foundation ) has made >research money available to investigating African medical techniques in the >form of direct and indirect grants to African medical schools. Also >most if not all of the large pharmaceutical firms have ongoing investigations >into African and South American herbal therapies. > >The reason is very simple. Less than 15% of the plants on this planet have >been characterized for their pharmaceutical properties. Everybody knows that ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >there are going to be new drugs to come out of traditionalist's therapy, and ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >its just a matter of time before the compounds are researched and made >available. > >The problem that I have with the statement of Mr. Stanions above, is that he >thinks that traditionalist African medicine is "natural healing" whereas >western medical practice is some sort of black magic. > >There really isn't any difference between the two. I hope you will notice that Carter pointed out one of the major differences. Whatever nature created us, created our medicine in a natural form using rules that are far beyond our ability to understand. Natural medicine accepts this lack of knowledge on our part and works with nature. Conventional medicine feels a need to find "The primary active agent" in the natural cure, and then creates a DRUG. Also natural medicine goes beyond the use of herbs and other forms of ingested help and embraces such methods of help as reflexology and iridology which are both scoffed at by the medical profession. Wale Akinpelu gave one example of someone cured by natural methods (note that I can use the word "cure" here, in conventional medicine the word "suppress" is usually more fitting). One of the herbs that helps in fighting cancer is Pau D' Arco (also called Taheebo or Ipe Roxo). Also eating raw seeds and nuts has been showed to help (perhaps because of the laetrile content?). Bowel cleansing is important and abstention from all unnatural (drugs) foodstuffs is important. Many people have been cured following a way that uses no drugs or radiation or operations or other forms of unnatural medicine. And most of these after being told by their doctor that there is nothing that can be done to help them. I guess the simplest way to express a difference is that a "Drug" is not natural, if you use drugs then you are not a naturalpathic doctor. I hope I satisfied Carter's request for facts, if not then lets remember that to a naturalpath someone being "cured" is a fact, to a conventional doctor there has to be some form of laboratory test performed to find a percentage of factuallity with probable error factors, double blind testing, etc. (sorry, but a smiley seems inappropriate at the end of such a sad statement). {allegra|ihnp4}!cbdkc1!tjs
carter@gatech.CSNET (Carter Bullard) (05/15/85)
In article <958@cbdkc1.UUCP> tjs@cbdkc1.UUCP ( Tom Stanions) writes: ><<<<<<>>>>>> > >Let me try and explain one or two differences between African (and other >natural) medicines and conventional medicine. > > >I guess the simplest way to express a difference is that a "Drug" is not >natural, if you use drugs then you are not a naturalpathic doctor. This is all wrong. Appoximately 45% of all commercially available "drugs" in the US are vegetable extracts, meaning that you mash up a bunch of plants and let it soak for a couple of days, filter it and then try your best to either make it look good or taste good. Of the remaining 55%, a little over half are purified mammal organ extracts, you know insulin, thyroid hormone. Now the process of purification is not anything more than fancy filtering and a little slow evaporation, and sometimes some lyophilization( thats freeze drying, you know, like coffee ). Out of the ~25% left over, about 20% are bacterial extracts, that is you grow a bunch of little things that you can't see and then you isolate some of the molecules that the little bugger thought would be fun to make, like streptomycetin, penicillin, erythromycin, you know, most if not all of the anti- biotics. That leaves about 5% of all the drugs in the US. Now this group is the strickly man made molecules, the synthetic drugs. The point so far is that 95% OF WESTERN DRUGS ARE COMPLETELY NATURAL. THAT IS MOTHER NATURE MADE THEM HERSELF IN HER OWN LITTLE KITCHEN. It isn't at all different from you yourself going out into the wilderness in search of wild roots and shrubery in order to cure your various bunions. Now with that in mind, lets look at the reality of some of the western medical practices. Diabetes, for instance, is many times caused by a malfunctioning pancreas. Now the therapy is to inject the essence of ground up cow or pig pancreas just under the skin. Birth control therapy is based solely on the idea that women don't get pregnant if they already are pregnant. So what does the western practitioner do but gives his patient a pill that basically is equivalent to a horses ground up gravid uterus. The only reason they dont actually give you real gravid horse uterus is because its easier and cheaper to copy it than to give you the real thing. So the whole idea is to make you eat the essence of what you what to be. If you carried this idea a little further you may find yourself saying, well if I want to be cunning, I ought to eat the brain or heart of a fox ( whichever organ provides the quality of cunning ). Now I know for a fact that many cannabalistic behaviors are based on this philosophy and I am very confident that one of the fundamental prinicples of African medicine is also based on this idea. -- Carter Bullard School of Information and Computer Science Georgia Institute of Technology Atlanta, Georgia 30332 CSNet:Carter @ Gatech ARPA:Carter.Gatech @ CSNet-relay.arpa uucp:...!{akgua,allegra,amd,ihnp4,hplabs,seismo,ut-ngp}!gatech!carter