The Dark Age of Medicine
Is it already here?
For decades we have been sold the idea that modern medicine is nothing short of miraculous. I used to believe this as well.
In some ways, there are truly miraculous developments within medicine - these are usually advancements in engineering. For example, when we speak about minimally invasive surgeries performed by accessing and navigating the body by blood vessels.
Indeed, the large-scale availability of these techniques are due to engineering. However, the innovations in these areas are often led by brilliant physicians who literally tinkered with household supplies in their garage.
I do not want to detract from the innovative and hard work that these pioneering physicians have conducted to get us where we are.
But, the argument I am making is far broader than the contributions of these rare individuals. The innovations of these physicians are most frequently used on patients who suffer from debilitating chronic disease. In fact, many of these interventions can be thought of as "heroic” in that they are last-ditch efforts to prolong life…after it has already been carelessly abused.
Discarding the Past
The first half of the 20th century is considered to be a “golden age” for medicine. During this period we developed surgical techniques, immunizations, drugs, and infection control.
We are led to believe that this era was so effective, that it rapidly led to a relative rise in chronic illness.
However, we fail to discuss that this same period witnessed the centralized allopathic school of Rockefeller medicine smear and discard the medical wisdom that humans have cultivated and used for millenia.
Many of these enduring perspectives and practices have since been labeled as “pseudoscience” or “quackery.”
For example, the miasma theory holds that many diseases are caused by environmental pollutants or toxins. It posits that epidemics are caused by emanations of rotting organic matter. This theory was advanced by Hippocrates and endured until the late 19th century, after which it was abandoned in favor of germ theory.
But, why was it abandoned? It is as relevant today as ever. Our environment is in large part responsible for most diseases that we experience. What specific entities you want to attribute a disease too is, frankly, irrelevant to miasma theory. Your environment should look, smell, sound and feel healthy.
The reality is the era of allopathic medicine could not be possible without the dismissal of almost all other enduring medical practices. Practices which have served humanity for centuries, and possibly millenia - not decades.
These include practices from the East, Middle East, and West. After perusing early medieval texts from all 3 geographies, it is clear that they and the ancient world were all converging on a common understanding of health and disease:
the body is not fragmentary
physiology is dynamic and a story unto itself
health and disease are not reducible to infinitesimally small entities
the microscope does not reveal as much as the heart & mind
the environment is of critical importance
pursue harmony with your environment, and health will follow
Consider the Present
Today, the conceptualization of health and disease by mainstream scientists and physicians is radically different.
The modern doctor compartmentalizes the body into organ systems and their respective specialties, because that is how he was trained.
The modern doctor looks at reductionist abstractions of health and disease to diagnose, treat and monitor patients. Examples include blood tests, biopsies, and radiologic imaging.
The modern doctor is ignorant of the dynamism of life, the interconnectedness of our body & mind, the continuum between self & environment, and the contribution of the physical universe to our existence.
The modern doctor does not learn how to take a thorough and personalized history.
The modern doctor does not know how to touch a patient, both physically and spiritually.
Can you blame him?
Since his conception (at university), the modern doctor has been propagandized.
He has been led to believe that the millenia of medical wisdom from around the world that has sustained human life is “pseudoscientific quackery.”
That the environment is not the most important determinant of health and disease.
That the unrelenting rise in chronic illness is due to ‘genetics.’
That we are born imperfect and impure in such a way that we must inject newborns with dozens of synthetic concoctions to consider them ‘healthy.’
That pharmaceutical companies are a friend to mankind.
That we must fear the Sun, the giver of all life.
That bodily autonomy stops when the State decides it must.
I could go on.
The Darkness
Since the turn of the 20th century, biology and medicine has been led down a path of obfuscation. With the advent of increasingly sophisticated technology, we gained the ability to gaze into the physical world with unprecedented spatial resolution.
Whereas before we wondered at the cosmos, we could now toy with the microscopic world.
The combination of Scientism and technologic advancement has given us the illusion that we can understand and solve disease if only we could look at increasingly smaller scales of existence. The tissue. The cell. The DNA. The protein. The virus.
This reductionist approach to care has been galvanized in recent decades. For example, in the past we would observe the biological behavior of brain tumors to diagnose and grade severity.
Now, the latest WHO guidelines for diagnosing brain tumors states that molecular testing (i.e. genetic testing) supersedes visual inspection and microscopic evaluation for categorization.
This move is heavily buttressed by the assumption that cancer is caused by random mutations (somatic mutation theory). It should come as no surprise to readers of this blog, that this is an unscientific view of cancer.
However, whatever the WHO dictates - mainstream medicine obeys.
One of the quirks of this path (I’m sure, unintentional) is the increased capital required to practice medicine in this fashion. Molecular tests are very expensive. Moreover, they are of limited availability. Most medical centers have to send out their specimens to highly specialized labs - like the Mayo Clinic, NIH, and CDC. Thus, while we continue to spin our wheels with clinically impertinent testing - the major institutions and their industry partners get to funnel increasingly large amounts of tax and insurance payer money into their pockets.
In the decades that followed the separation of gold and money, we have seen unyielding rise in funding to nationalized institutions like the NIH…as well as wildly inflated expenditure on healthcare:
The amount that the US population spends on healthcare is second to none. Whether by direct out of pocket expense, insurance premiums, or medicare-based taxation.
One would assume that this would be accompanied by health and wellness for the population that is also second to none.
In 2000, the RAND Corporation analyzed rates of chronic disease and projected that they would continue to rise from about 42-44% by the turn of the century to around 48% in 2020-2030.
I’m pleased to report that within 20 years, we have blown those projections out of the water
Not only does the majority of the adult US population (60%) live with at least 1 chronic condition, but a staggering 12% have 5 or more chronic conditions. Keep in mind this data is almost 10 years old.
After everything that has transpired in recent years, I wonder what this breakdown looks like today.
This problem does not only plague Americans. Between 2008 and 2017, Canadians (ontario) saw a comparable rise in multi-morbidity. Keep in mind, a 1 million person rise in Canada is significant given that the population is almost 10x less than the USA.
Not looking good with respect to chronic disease.
How about life expectancy?
As you can see, many other nations (faint lines) are getting far more bang-for-buck with their healthcare spending as it relates to life expectancy.
In the US, we have been experiencing diminishing returns in the same post-1970 time period.
Total US spending on prescription drugs between 1980 and 2018
Maybe we just need to be spending more on medical research?
A few other interesting trends:
Impacts from the food supply:
In Summary…
As far as I am concerned, the modern practice of medicine is so devoid of a realistic understanding of biology and the physical world that it is irredeemable in its current form.
Luckily, this industry has become so bloated and visibly corrupt that people are turning elsewhere for their care.
They are turning to alternative providers like osteopaths, chiropractors, homeopaths, naturopaths, and mitochondriacs.
As they should be.
Each one of these disciplines, when practiced authentically, contains wisdom about an element of existence that corporatized allopathic medicine cannot comprehend.
I believe the way forward is a marriage of our inherited medical wisdom and the evolving research concerning the nature of biophysical reality. This includes specialties like chronobiology, mitochondrial disease, and biophotonics.
I have shed the chains of allopathic medicine, and look forward to where this new path will take me.
The physicians vs administrators chart made me shudder
Great read. Thank you. It’s sad that “Above all, do no harm” Has been replaced with “fix nothing and charge more with no end in sight.”
It’s also sad that doctors that work outside the establishment can’t accept insurance (because it won’t pay), are often labeled charlatans, and have their voices suppressed.
I fully understand the fix is extremely complicated and can’t be done overnight.
Keep up the good work.