| Physiomedicalism, we are told in this book, is “a medical philosophy
founded on the theorem of vital force or energy inherent in the living
matter of tissue cells ...”. So perhaps this is a book for medical
philosophers — it certainly is not one for rational pharmacists.
In order to prevent legal action from the author, I better justify this
unusually bold statement. The book is full of outdated medical concepts
which have no basis in fact or proven value other than their historical
interest. We are, for instance, told that “cancer is caused by
a pleomorphic micro-organism” (p355), that “dandruff and
falling hair are often caused by the elimination of systematic impurities
through the scalp” (p289), that constipation is due to autointoxication
(p222) and that multiple sclerosis is linked to chronic viral infections,
intestinal microvilli damage and a leaky gut (p274).
After bombarding the reader with “wisdom” of this sort on
no fewer than 370 pages, the author provides short monographs of 420
herbal medicines. Even though much better than the preceding text, these
monographs are not as informative as they might be. Specifically, they
lack most of the data that pharmacists would need.
My “favourite” sections of the book are the ones on “Medical
astrology”, where we learn that Mars is associated with garlic
and the sun with arnica, and on “Emergency conditions” — useful
stuff indeed! For instance, with deep vein thrombosis “movement” is
recommended. This advice can endanger the life of your patients.
Recently we have seen several excellent books on herbal medicine. Sadly,
this one is not one of them.
Edzard Ernst
|
The
Pharmaceutical Journal