Reprinted from Nature's Field Vol. 7 No. 1
Samuel Thomson, a nineteenth century herbalist, was less polite about
this subject. He felt that this disease naming was outright deceptive and
designed to keep the people in ignorance.
"...they have learned just enough to know how to deceive the people, and keep them in ignorance, by covering their doings under an unknown language to their patients. There can be no good reason given why all the technical terms in medical works are kept in a dead language, except it be to deceive and keep the world ignorant of their doings, that they may the better impose upon the credulity of the people; for if they were written in our own language, every body would understand them, and judge for themselves; and their poisonous drugs would be thrown into the fire before their patients would take them."
I am not ready to accuse medical doctors in general of practicing deliberate deception, they were taught to use those fancy names in medical school. However, it often seems like they are trying to deceive people in actual practice. I once had a lady tell me that the doctor had diagnosed her as having idiosyncratic pancreatitis. Translated that means: inflammation of the pancreas due to unknown causes. Wouldn't it have been easier just to say: Your pancreas is inflamed, but we don't know why? Easier yes, but it destroys some of the mystic of medicine.
Investigate the meaning of other labels doctors use for diseases and you'll discover the same thing. Many disease names are simply descriptions of symptoms in Latin. Other diseases are named for the person who discovered them and still others are named after the first person who was diagnosed as having that affliction.
Let's look at a common example. If a person comes to the doctor and
says "I have a pain in my joint", the doctor might respond, "You have
arthritis." What the doctor just did was repeated the symptoms back in
Latin. "Itis" means "inflammation of." The word arthritis means "inflammation
of the joints." Words like bronchitis, tonsillitis, appendicitis and so
forth are simply Latin descriptions of the tissue or organ that is inflammed.
Any part of the body that hurts is probably inflammed, because all tissues
of the body respond to damage or irritation through the process of inflammation.
Hence, all these names are fancy ways of naming the location of
the pain, something you probably already knew.
People tell me one of the primary reasons that they continue to take all of these supplements is because they have been told that nutritional healing takes a long time. There is truth in that statement, healing does take time. Any natural process takes time. I may be too impatient in my desire to eat corn to wait for the seeds I am planting today to mature into a crop of ripe corn on the cob, but nothing I can do is going to avoid the process of growth required for such an event to occur.
In our culture people do tend to be impatient-they are conditioned to want "instant relief." But instant relief is not healing. It's simply the masking of symptoms without really restoring the body to its natural healthy state.
Since most drugs are simply masking symptoms, instead of healing, you have to keep taking the drug in order to continue to obtain instant relief. However, the fact that the symptoms return, almost immediately, when the drug is discontinued means that no healing has really taken place. If the drug were actually correcting the problem, then you would take it for a period of time, get better, and not need it anymore.
Think about it. Have you ever met anyone who was "cured" of headaches by taking pain killers?
Have you ever known anyone whose high blood pressure medication "healed" them of high blood pressure so they could discontinue the drug? If antibiotics really "cure" infections, then why is it that the more people take them the easier it seems to be for them to get another infection?
In contrast, I have seen herbs actually heal the body. That is, I have observed that when one finds a nutritional and lifestyle program that actually addresses the real root causes and that the person stays on the program for a few months, and then get better, which means that the supplements one took did their job and are not needed anymore.
"All...that medicine, can do in the expulsion of disorder, is to kindle up the decaying spark [the vital power or life force of the body], and restore its energy till it glows in all its wonted vigor. If a direct administration can be made to produce this effect, and it can, it is evidently immaterial what is the name, or color of the disease, whether bilious, yellow, scarlet or spotted; whether it is simple or complicated, or whether nature has one enemy or more. Names, are arbitrary things, the knowledge of a name is the cummin and anise, but in the knowledge of the origin of a malady, and its antidote, lies the weightier matters of this science. This knowledge makes the genuine physician; all without it is real quackery.
It has been a general opinion that extensive study and great erudition,
are necessary to form the eminent physician. But all this may be as Paul
saith, but science, falsely so called. A man may have a scientific knowledge
of the human frame, he may know the names in every language of every
medicine, mineral and vegetable, as well as every disease, and yet be a
I am certain that many people would consider this overly simplistic.
Perhaps it is. Yet, having put these principles into practice with my own
family for ten years, I am absolutely convinced that they are correct, at least
in the case of acute ailments.
"It is true that the study of anatomy, or structure of the human body, and
of the whole animal economy is pleasing and useful; nor is there any
objection to this, however minute and critical, if it were not to neglect the
first great principles, and the weightier matters of knowledge. But it is no
more necessary to mankind at large, to qualify them to administer relief
from pain and sickness, than to a cook in preparing food to satisfy hunger
and nourishing the body. There is one general cause of hunger and one
general supply of food; one general cause of disease, and one general
remedy. One can be satisfied, and the other removed, by an infinite variety
of articles, best adapted to those different purposes. That medicine therefore,
that will open obstruction, promote perspiration, and restore digestion,
is suited to every patient, whatever the form the disease assumes, and
is universally applicable. And acute disorders, such as fevers, cholics and
dysentery, may be relieved thereby, in twenty-four or forty-eight hours, at
My goal is to do my best to KIS (Keep It Simple) and I think
that medicine in general could benefit by trying to do likewise.
Said Dr. Buchan in Thomson's book:
This information is for educational purposes only. Consult with a qualified health practictioner for all serious or persistant illness. Copyright© 1999 by Robinson & Horne, L.C., P.O. Box 1028, Roosevelt, UT 84066. This material may be duplicated for educational purposes only (not for resale) provided it is not altered in any way.
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