| 1000 years ago in Europe pre-Christian tribes | | | | result Western medicine has produced 'World |
| originally had a Goddess culture - a matriarchy | | | | saving' vaccines and antibiotics. It has created |
| where the earth and nature and their cycles and | | | | drugs and surgical techniques that do utterly |
| secrets were revered. In pre-industrial societies | | | | amazing things. It has virtually eliminated all the |
| illness was not seen as a 'random assault from | | | | serious communicable diseases (in the First World) |
| outside' but as a deeply significant life event | | | | such as leprosy, plague, tuberculosis, tetanus, |
| integral to the sufferer's whole being - spiritual, | | | | syphilis, rheumatic fever, pneumonia, meningitis, |
| moral, physical and life course - past, present and | | | | polio, septicaemia. There are very few women |
| future. Dis-ease was interpreted as packed with | | | | dying in childbirth compared to the past. Western |
| moral, spiritual and religious messages as one of | | | | medicine has been, and is, a triumph in the face of |
| the many ways through which 'God revealed his | | | | these problems which worried us back then the |
| will to mankind'. Other philosophies of medicine | | | | way cancer and heart disease worry us today. |
| such as Ayurvedic or Tibetan think similarly, in | | | | Even the big medical problems of the of 1930's |
| these, dis-ease has a karmic aspect. | | | | and 40's have literally vanished. |
| Around the tenth century in Europe - after the so | | | | The age of infectious disease has given way to |
| called 'Dark Ages' - women, the original stewards | | | | the age of chronic disorders. The major killers |
| of the land (men did 'animal husbandry'), were | | | | today are heart and vascular disease, chronic |
| dispossessed of it by the new patriarchies of the | | | | degenerative diseases and cancer, largely incurable |
| Church and State. This male hierarchy hid the | | | | and increasing in incidence. The strategies that |
| things they were most afraid of, namely the fact | | | | worked so well for all but eliminating acute |
| that it is women who hold the key to the | | | | infectious diseases just don't seem to work for |
| processes and powers of life. They took them as | | | | chronic and degenerative conditions. |
| their own, decreeing laws about how we should | | | | "The prevalence of asthma, multiple sclerosis, |
| behave to impose control and inventing 'original sin'. | | | | chronic fatigue, immune deficiency syndrome, HIV |
| Allied to this there came a prolonged persecution | | | | and a host of other debilitating conditions is |
| of women, especially any of those involved in | | | | increasing. Conventional biomedicine - so strikingly |
| healing. Some sources estimate about 5 - 9 million | | | | successful in the treatment of overwhelming |
| women were destroyed across Europe during this | | | | infections, surgical and medical emergencies and |
| persecution. Essentially the role of women as | | | | congenital defects, has been unable to stem the |
| healers and midwives was discouraged and | | | | tide of these conditions". |
| 'home-making' and its many associated skills is still | | | | James Gordon M.D., Washington, D.C. |
| regarded as a 'worthless' career according to our | | | | Even during the time of Sir Isaac Newton the |
| primarily fiscal values based on GDP. | | | | human body was viewed as an intricate biological |
| When a patriarchy takes over a matriarchy as a | | | | machine. The Universe was an orderly, predictable |
| fundamental paradigm shift, one of the main | | | | but divine mechanism, a 'grand clockwork'. |
| things that happens is that 'healing' and 'spirituality' | | | | Although hundreds of years have passed, |
| are separated out as an instrument of control. | | | | Western scientific medicine still holds the same |
| The world of spirit and physic were separated | | | | basic philosophy, but are more sophisticated in |
| and became even more so during the great male | | | | studying biological mechanisms at a molecular level. |
| 'Age of Reason' that began with Descartes and | | | | The first Newtonian approaches were essentially |
| continued with Newton, the tail-end of which | | | | surgical. The body was seen as if it were a |
| many are presently clinging to in desperation and | | | | complex plumbing system. If it went wrong the |
| a degree of applied self-interest. | | | | offending piece was removed or bypassed. These |
| Rene Descartes (1596 - 1650) was a central | | | | days instead of using knives, drugs are often |
| influence on the 17th century revolution that | | | | used to do more or less the same things. |
| began modern science and philosophy. His 'Method | | | | Humans though are far more than walking sacks |
| of Doubt' was published in 1637: | | | | of chemicals. The animating life-force central to |
| "I resolved to reject as false everything in which I | | | | other medical systems is an energy that is not |
| could imagine the least doubt, in order to see if | | | | addressed by modern scientific methodology and |
| there afterwards remained anything that was | | | | there are no Western medical models that explain |
| entirely indubitable". | | | | what it is and what it does. It is misguided by the |
| The philosophy of 'Cartesian dualism' became part | | | | concept that all illnesses are cured by physically |
| of our science, where the mind and the body are | | | | repairing or eliminating abnormal cells. This is partly |
| seen as essentially separate. The 'self', the | | | | due to a conflict between 'Western' and 'Eastern' |
| conscious being that is 'me' was seen as | | | | philosophies and has its roots in the division of |
| essentially non-physical. Misguidedly (it was not | | | | science and religion along with the destruction of |
| Descartes intention) this philosophy contributed to | | | | folk medicine in both U.S. and Europe. |
| the mechanistic and rational philosophy of the | | | | Cancer cannot be treated effectively under a |
| universe adopted by our culture. Descartes was | | | | philosophy of reductionism. Scientific cancer |
| one of the first people to suggest that | | | | research has failed to find a cure because it is |
| phenomena could be understood by breaking | | | | looking in the wrong places with the wrong tools. |
| them down into constituent parts and examining | | | | Cancer needs to be understood as a 'whole' |
| each minutely. His view of the human body as a | | | | disease in relation to each individual's experience |
| machine functioning within a mechanistic universe | | | | and the culture of which they are part. It has |
| took prevalence within the 'Age of Reason'. | | | | multiple causes that vary with each patient. The |
| "Consider the human body as a machine. My | | | | strategies that worked so well for tackling acute |
| thought compares a sick man and an ill-made | | | | infectious diseases are inappropriate for dealing |
| clock with my idea of a healthy man and a well | | | | with chronic and degenerative conditions. Cancer |
| made clock". | | | | patients can be at best increasingly 'patched up' |
| This attention to analytical detail is still at the heart | | | | by orthodox treatments but at spiralling health |
| of our scientific research methodologies. As a | | | | care costs. |