Nigel M. de S. Cameron, Ph.D., author of The New
Medicine: Life and Death after Hippocrates, makes some
interesting observations concerning the practice of medicine.
Dr. de S. Cameron’s argument is that “the characteristic of
the New Medicine is its rejection of the sanctity of human
life… Replacing this principle is respect for life, which
means we shall value human life as much as we choose to value
it.” His objection to the new medicine focuses on the areas
of “liberal abortion” and euthanasia. The Trinity
Evangelical Divinity School professor maintains that
Hippocrates and his Oath brought values, “philanthropy,
professional loyalty and respect for the patient” to a
previously barbaric profession that was as willing to help
the sick die as try to cure them. He says that “the New
Medicine is a sophisticated technological throwback to the
primitive world of pre-Hippocratic values.” While Dr. de S.
Cameron makes some good points, he seems to have missed the
entire point of the practice of medicine. Medicine is not
divided into hippocratic preservers of life, (by far the
minority), and post Hippocratic, give the patient what he/she
wants (e.g., abortion on demand or a quick painless death).
These are not two divergent philosophical schools of thought.
Medicine has always had one overriding philosophical
objective from before Hippocrates to 1995. That was and is
fighting disease. They have used various methods to do it
(supposedly moving from primitive to more sophisticated).
They have drilled holes in the skull to let disease out.
They have tried to flush it out, burn it out, bleed it out,
cut it out, or drive it out with substances so noxious that
no one or no thing could want to reside in their presence.
Unsuccessful in doing that, they have developed drugs to mask
its symptoms to the degree that the patient is unaware of its
existence, hence, it can be considered as good as gone.
Their concern has never been in life, its restoration,
preservation or quality, except to the degree that prolonging
life is a means of keeping score, determining whether they
are winning the battle against disease. As long as the
patient is alive, they assume they are winning. However,
fighting the disease is the objective, life is merely a
measure of whether they are accomplishing that objective.
An example of medicine’s inherent lack of concern for
life and preoccupation with fighting disease was demonstrated
last year. An article in the March 21, 1994 Philadelphia
Inquirer explained the scientific medical research in
developing a new treatment for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis
(ALS). That is the disease that took the life of baseball
great, Lou Gehrig. It is still as fatal today as it was when
he died from it in 1939. It seems that in this research, to
demonstrate the effectiveness of a new treatment, some of the
patients with the disease were given the drug, others were to
unknowingly receive a placebo. Here’s the problem. Since
they were going to die from the disease, no one wanted to
take the placebo. They all wanted to try the experimental
drug. They felt they had nothing to lose. It’s one thing to
be part of an experiment if you’ve got nothing to lose and
something to gain (those taking the experimental drug).
However, those taking the placebo had nothing to gain. But
that is the approach of medicine. Sacrifice those people to
win the battle against ALS. If the drug proves effective,
can you imagine how the families of those who got the placebo
will feel. I’m not sure if there is an answer to this
dilemma, but as long as medicine fights disease, it will not
look for an answer, people are merely necessary casualties in
the war. That has always been the philosophy of medicine.
However, the changes in medicine that de S. Cameron observes
are not philosophical changes but a materialistic attitude
that has permeated medicine (as well as just about every
other profession, including chiropractic). As medical-
doctors tried to cope with the frustration of the futility in
fighting disease, many of them turned to getting their
satisfaction from medicine through acquiring material things.
In other words, if you cannot get satisfaction from
conquering disease, get it from a Mercedes, a home in the
mountains and Caribbean cruises every year. Again, they are
no different than the rest of the world without a philosophy
or belief system. The frustration of the medical philosophy
has caused many physicians to view what they do as selling a
product:
What do you want: a little relief?, a lot of relief?,
to be rid of the offending part (or ugly pat, in the case of
cosmetic surgery, a very lucrative field)?, you want more
energy?, less discomfort?
The concern is not for the patient’s welfare or health,
just their relief. Sometimes it’s not even that honorable.
Many physicians actually give antibiotics for the common
cold, knowing the drug will not affect the virus, simply
because the patient wants it and they know the medical doctor
down the street will prescribe it if they don’t. Medicine’s
callousness, willing to sacrifice people for research and its
materialism, giving the patient whatever they want, from
instant relief, to abortion, to a quick death, is the normal
outgrowth of its philosophy. When you treat disease, you do
not look at the person, only the disease. Any concern for
the patient is strictly because it is the battleground for
the war on the disease. Even the pulling of the plug may be
more an economic act or the physician’s admission of defeat
at the hands of the enemy, than a humanitarian gesture. Of
course, I realize there are many fine physicians who are
exceptions to all I am saying here. The point is that,
without a philosophy of life, without the objective of
restoring and maintaining life, medicine cannot help but at
best degenerate into ugly warfare with an enemy (disease)
that refuses to subscribe to the articles of the Geneva
Convention. At worst, medicine degenerates into a business,
which is the segment that de S. Cameron appears to be
observing. In either case, it is not a system to which we in
chiropractic with a vision of health and a philosophy of life
should want to aspire.v12n1