The Fool wrote:
>
> ----------
> From: Norm Hansen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
> ----
>
> <http://chronicle.com/free/v49/i21/21b02001.htm>:
Most snipped; just one thing I want to respond to. As a whole, very
good. (And I hope I'm making sense this morning.)
> 5. The discoverer says a belief is credible because it has endured for
> centuries. There is a persistent myth that hundreds or even thousands of
> years ago, long before anyone knew that blood circulates throughout the
> body, or that germs cause disease, our ancestors possessed miraculous
> remedies that modern science cannot understand. Much of what is termed
> "alternative medicine" is part of that myth.
>
> Ancient folk wisdom, rediscovered or repackaged, is unlikely to match the
> output of modern scientific laboratories.
There *are* folk remedies that have been tested scientifically and have
been shown to have the effects credited to them. I'm thinking mostly
along the lines of herbal remedies; in some cases, the active agent has
been successfully isolated, tested, and shown to have the effect
credited it for hundreds of years.
Knowing some of these can be highly useful. Frex, if you want a nice,
healthy pregnancy, you really ought to be avoiding pennyroyal.
Also, if the active ingredient is isolated and can then be synthesized
in an effective form, and further studies done with *that*, the herbal
remedies can lead to good pharmaceutical business. (Think willowbark
tea, and now how much money is spent on aspirin these days.)
But what I'm talking about is the scientific inquiry into the usefulness
of these remedies, and confirmation or denial -- using modern techniques
to investigate older remedies, and determine just what really works and
what doesn't -- and not some mystical healing force.
(Just because it's ancient knowledge doesn't mean it's necessarily
wrong, but it should be scrutinized.)
Julia
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