So there I was, minding my own business, when I went over to my desk drawer for some printer paper. Bent over same, opened drawer…. Almost couldn’t stand back up.
Intense pain in the lower back. Hobbled to the medicine cabinet, swallowed a muscle relaxer and two Advils, came back by the freezer got a cold pack, sat down, applied the pack and called the chiropractor.
Two hours later he pronounced a pinched nerve, “adjusted” the spine and relief was immediate if not complete. Two treatments later I am much better. In fact I plan on some light yard work tomorrow pending some warmer weather and dryer soil.
I bring this up because some people call chiropractors “quacks.”
And some are. And some doctors are.
It was in a John W. Campbell editorial in Astounding that I first read this concept.
If a person goes to a doctor and if the doctor, after due and necessary tests and examinations, announces that the person has an incurable disease, why would any reasonable person deny the supposed doomed person the right to try any cure available on the market?
I mean, what’s the down side? The person will die sooner? Waste their money?
Huh? It’s like if I fell off a 100 foot tower I shouldn’t flap my arms. It’s like the old joke.
An actor clutches his chest and collapses on the stage. A fellow actor looks at him, turns to the audience and says, “Is there a doctor in house?”
No one answers.
The actor again asks, “Is there a doctor in the house?”
From the back of the auditorium a little old Jewish lady calls out, “Give him an enema!
Stunned, the actor cries, “But Madam! This man has had a heart attack. What possible good will an enema do?”
“It won’t hurt,” came the calm reply.
You have to remember the same profession that says don’t try treatment X for the fatal disease because it hasn’t been approved is the same profession that once bled patients for pneumonia and fought against doctors washing their hands after handling corpses.
And to make things worse, modern day doctors have the government at their sides and looking over their shoulders.
Now remember, my point has to do with the patient FIRST being properly examined, tested and diagnosed with an incurable fatal disease. Why shouldn’t, as Campbell suggests in his editorial, “Louis Pasteur, Medical Quack,” Astounding Science Fiction, June 1964, the person then be permitted to find himself a Licensed Quack and try whatever he feels like trying?
Could it be that the doctors are concerned over loss of income?
What you ask, “Don’t you know that doctors sit on the right hand side of God?”
“Yes,” I answer. “And right next to them is Airplane Pilots and the latest created sports deity.”
And I don’t want anyone to think that I do not respect Doctors. I do. They have all spent years learning and as a group are the most ethical around.
But they aren’t divine. And certainly the FDA is not.
How would you like to find out that in that double blind study that approved the cure that will save millions…. You have been the one taking the sugar pills.
And if you really want to get angry, think about that $90 million we are pissing away on those shits at NPR while the cancer research on DCA doesn’t happen.
Analog Science Fact Science Fiction
June 1964
Campbell was never thrilled with the magazine's name, "Astounding Science Fiction." He often used cover art to demphasize the "Astounding." During 1960 the name was gradually changed to "Analog Science Fact Science Fiction."
In March of 1963 he changed the format from pocket book size to the 8"x10.5" bedsheet size in an attempt to garner even more respectability and newsstand space. It didn't succeed and the cost made him revert back to the pocket book size in July '65.
As you can tell, this copy was stored flat for a considerable period without a protective cover. The resulting rubbing has created flaws in the cover and considerably reduced the value of an otherwise very nice copy.
OnTwitter I am Lesabre1 "Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them." - Karl Popper
“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants. It is the creed of slaves.” - William Pitt
"Logic. There is little logic among the cultural elite, maybe because there is little omnipresent fear of job losses or the absence of money, and so arises a rather comfortable margin to indulge in nonsense." - Victor Davis Hanson
