Hippocrates vs. Empedocles

I open a newspaper and immediately spot an ad about “Petro the channeler and his magic cat.” They cure every conceivable malady and have an inexhaustible supply of “meteors and plasmas.” I turn the page and find another ad extolling the “people’s protectress Mrs. Hanna.” She is shown wearing an embroidered blouse and shawl. She feels sorry for doctors who helplessly “throw up their hands,” whereas she has “inherited a unique method from my ancestors.” The ad emphasizes that those in distress should waste no time in coming to see her (50 hryvnias a visit). After that I open a book written by a super-healer (his posters are plastered throughout the city) and read about an old woman who fell asleep during a seance and began levitating, so they had to grab her by her leg. I wonder what would have happened if they hadn’t grabbed her.

CONTACT №1

We feel the same way about ads and commercials the way we do about mosquitoes at a country house — a pain in the neck that has to be tolerated. For a sociologist, advertising statistics are a bonanza, especially data provided by the newspaper RIO, which publishes everything. I analyzed 669 ads and discovered that 55% concerned the sex industry and 15% with fortune telling, clairvoyance, and faith healing. The rest, less than a third, comprised a stunning variety of other exotic services, ranging from clipping pets to banquet emcees, private teachers, and private eyes). Prostitution occupied a place of honor, closely followed by all kinds of fortunetellers, half of the latter represented by short ads (e.g., “I Tell Fortunes”), with one-third promising to return a stray husband to the family, make a woman marriageable or teach her how to win her man’s heart; others guaranteed treatment for insomnia, alcoholism, lifting bad spells, curing children’s illnesses (e.g., a scare), depression, and protecting a patient from “energy vampires.” Only a small number offered to cast a spell to make a packet of money or succeed in business.

Let me give you a verbatim example. “A hereditary fortuneteller. I can foresee your past and future, deliver you from an evil spell and protect you from the evil eye. I can tell fortunes by looking at photos and I name names. I help in all cases.” I dialed the number and asked about the fee and the address. I sent a female assistant with a photo taken almost 50 years ago, showing me and a pretty girl clinging to each other. However, the fortune teller (also female) was to be given a line to the effect that the photo had been taken recently, that I was a student who had started neglecting his studies and staying nights away from home, and that the girl was unidentified, because the photo was found in my pocket. The fortuneteller was to identify the girl and provide as much data about her as possible. She lived in a modern plush condo and the female doorkeeper painted a wonderful picture of the fortuneteller (most likely in return for a sum). The fortuneteller occupied a plush apartment. There was an icon on the table, along with a Bible and a magnifying glass. The fortuneteller listened to my assistant and asked for the man’s name (?!). After that she pulled off her stunts, opening the Bible at random and reading a couple of lines, then closing her eyes, whispering something, then examining the photo (9 x 12 cm) through the magnifying glass. Finally she declared that (a) she could not identify the girl, as “her planet is closed today,” (b) the girl had put the evil eye on the young man, but that she was prepared to cure him, so he should be brought to her. My assistant stayed there for five minutes and was charged six hryvnias per minute. Not bad, considering that she had 5-10 visitors a day, according to the doorkeeper.

CONTACT №2

I continued making calls to the numbers in some of the ads, asking just two questions: “Can you cast a spell to cure a case of eczema?” and “Can you cure a case of cadaveritis?” Most people know what eczema is (its symptoms are obvious, so gypping a patient into believing that he or she has been cured is a problem), so none of the people that I called was prepared to deal with it. As for cadaveritis, the term comes from cadaver; it’s medical slang, with a touch of dark humor, meaning a grave disease of obscure origin. In my case, 14 calls produced 13 positive responses, and only the fourteenth replied that she didn’t know the disease, but that she would try, and she had to study the patient’s general condition. I liked that and identified myself. Finally, the lady and her assistant agreed to visit me at the institute. Both turned out to be graduates of the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute and had embarked on their dubious enterprise after losing their jobs. I learned that they had quit telling fortunes using cards, as this involved evil spirits and both found that unhealthy. Both were taking courses lasting several months, and of course they were paying for them. Their training was meant to perfect the soul with the aid of the Holy Bible, whereupon they would be able to help people by applying white magic. Both sounded very sincere, even dedicated, probably because they wanted to convince themselves more than yours truly. Would they return to engineering if offered good salaries? They said no. Weren’t they afraid to treat maladies with only a superficial knowledge of physiology and pathology? They said they studied their patients and tried to get an insight into their condition. In one case they sensed that the man lacked certain microelements. He did some tests and their diagnosis was confirmed. What microelements, I wanted to know. Well, various kinds, came the reply. Were there many cases in which they could sense the cause of the problem and medical tests would later confirm it? There were indeed such cases, they said.

My guests were generally quite enthusiastic, anticipating therapeutic achievements via spiritual upgrading. I felt a little sorry for them. Speaking of black and white magic in treating maladies, after one possessed with a devil, blind, and dumb was brought unto Jesus and He healed him, the Pharisees said, This fellow doth not cast out devils, but by Beelzebub the prince of the devils. (MAT 12:22; 24). This is a question worthy of Dostoyevsky’s consideration. Can one perform a worthy deed aided by the devil? In fact, the New Testament is in a way a reference source for pathology — e.g., treating fevers, leprosy, hemorrhages, muteness, deafness, blindness, injuries, spinal and articulation disorders, also atrophied limbs, and seances for mass healing, curing all diseases — that was how Jesus and the Apostles inspired the Jews in their day. The Savior raised people from the dead, although long before Him the Greek Empedocles boasted of having done the same thing. Hippocrates had not believed him and never missed an opportunity to make fun of him. The Sadducees, who did not consider resurrection of the dead possible, opposed Jesus. Fedorov of Odesa, a noted and probably the most original philosopher in the Russian Empire, wrote that the resurrection of our parents, great grandparents, and forefathers was the ultimate goal of mankind. Nowadays a Moscow charlatan, who calls himself Longo, claims he already knows how this can be accomplished.

CONTACT №3

There is a physician who is visiting Kyiv from a regional town to treat alcoholics. What makes his ads interesting is that he guarantees full recovery (a fact reflected in a contract made with every patient, signed and sealed). In his reception room one finds long-suffering mothers with afflicted sons and wives with husbands hooked to the bottle. The atmosphere is oppressive, as these people have tried various faith healers and sought assistance from parish priests. At the same time, some of the faces (mostly mothers and wives) show signs of hope. The patients, depending on their degree of addiction, look ashamed, indifferent, subdued, and aggressive; some have totally blank expressions on their faces. The physician starts by addressing all his patients and informing them that (a) he was Kashpirovsky’s brother in arms; (b) his methods are original and inimitable; (c) he has lots of enemies in the medical world who criticize him, even though they never learned to treat such cases effectively, and even visit him to watch his proceedings, later to spread malicious gossip. Individual interviews, complete with icon and candles, are followed by injections of medicine with indecipherable names, collective seances, and injections. Finally, the patients are given recommendations, including advice on taking baths requiring nine pine cones steeped in the bathwater. The main thing, however, is signing a document to the effect that (a) everything that has been done to a given patient to date is sufficient for recovery from alcoholism; (b) should a given patient continue to indulge in the bad habit, this will indicate breach of contract, in which case the physician shall assume no liability. Trust me, I had this kind of document in my hands and read it through. I can only hope that this farce has served to produce a salutary effect on some of the patients. The question remains: why should every such mother and wife have to pay six hundred hryvnias, when her son or husband is going to get drunk the very next morning? This physician’s aplomb, his references to Kashpirovsky, that icon, those six pine cones, and his guaranteed earnings instead of guaranteed recovery — all point to a trend rather than a one-time occurrence. Quacks, all those sham faith healers, are obliterating the boundaries of medical science. The impression is that physicians, rather than faith healers, are seeking an unnatural alliance. In ethical terms, what is the difference between a physician pretending to cure alcoholism and that woman who examined my photo through a magnifying glass?

CONTACT №4

Regrettably, I’ve written more than read over the past couple of years, so I felt sad walking past the State Medical Library on Tolstoy St. I was headed for the nearby medical institute, a place where I, an old physician, was facing changes and my replacement under the auspices of the Association of Folk Medicine of Ukraine (ANMU). What is folk medicine all about? It has to do with an old village woman who acts as a midwife and cuts and ties an infant’s umbilical cord. I remember a baba, who once applied sour milk to a burn on my arm; old men and women setting bones, treating people’s illnesses with herbs and erysipelas with a clump of hemp or flax (now quartz lamps are administered); or that old man who, before my eyes, sprinkled porcelain clay on deep burns (an agent currently known as white adsorbent and used extensively); or that old beekeeper who put angry bees on the back of a man in the throes of lumbago (today, ointments containing apitoxin are available in drugstores). All such rational experience accumulated by the people over the ages has long been added to the arsenal of medical science. Nothing could be more irrational than referring to folk medicine as nonstandard. Well, let bygones be bygones. Now, however, one discovers that folk medicine can be reduced to a publication numbering 414 pages, compiled by Aunt Harafyna and written in such a way as to leave the reader befuddled with superstitions, ambiguous admonitions, and recommendations. Here is a quote: “A thin line of moustache above the upper lip dampens the action of the salivary glands, causing prostate cancer along the ancestral line. It is bad to deprive your legs of hair. Marusia did so and her heart began to suffer. Anychka did so and could not avoid a car accident. A man developed lupus erythematosus, a terrible disease, because he practiced certain sexual positions with his wife, which can produce offspring with bulging eyes or fused buttocks. Such children tend to become alcoholics and are susceptible to cancerous diseases and endocrine disorders.”

Oh my God, stuff like that makes you laugh and cry. Where could that Aunt Harafyna have dug up words like endocrine disorders? There are two possibilities, one being that the book was written by well-wishing individuals obsessed with pseudo-Ukrainian misconceptions; the other, that Aunt Harafyna learned such sophisticated terms while attending some training courses. It is very simple, really. All it takes is a look at the announcement board at the Medical Institute of the National Academy of Medical Sciences. Here a faith healer can choose between 17 such short-term courses. One is called Fundamentals of Medicine. I was stunned to see astrology as one of the listed courses. Great. Now it’s a subject taught at the National Academy’s Medical Institute, with graduates being issued certificates.

After making up some fake healers’ credentials (The Treatment of Malignant Tumors with Electromagnetic Blows) and rehearsing what I’d have to yak about when asked, I opened the front door of the institute and stepped inside. I left 45 minutes later, knowing everything I had hoped to learn. My fake credentials had not surprised anyone. No one asked for any explanations. Instead, I had been told that (a) I would have to take a preparatory medical course (three weeks, 300 hryvnias), (b) another course in bio-energy information therapy (three weeks, 300 hryvnias), (c) an interview and certification (400 hryvnias), (d) visit the Ministry of Health, Room #91, in order to receive a special authorization (160 hryvnias), and finally, obtain a faith healer’s license (350 hryvnias). Was that all? Not quite. They said I would have to repeat these procedures three years later. Would I have to pay a total of UAH 1,510 again? They replied that the fees might change, you know, let’s wait and see... Out in the street, away from that weird establishment, I told myself that life was beautiful, indeed. I didn’t go to the ministry, because I had learned from a reliable source that many a visitor like me was scrapped there, but that a pile of greenbacks was enough to secure a license allowing any kind of quackery. Let me stress that this is what I was told, but I don’t know whether such transactions are practiced in any way, and I am not accusing anyone of anything.

TIME TO COLLECT STONES

There have always been and always will be individuals, who through ignorance, pathological fanaticism, or desire for gain, are prepared to pretend to treat the illnesses of their fellow humans — just as there will always be people who seek help from faith healers and fortune tellers because of flaws in medical science or shortcomings in the health system. At one time it was proposed that the Academy of Medical Sciences and the Ministry of Health should regulate this domain. That sounded like a reasonable proposition, but practice has shown the contrary: all such “faith healers” are making money, just as others are using them to make even more money, so the greater the number of such quacks, the better off the national medical bureaucracy is. It is turning into a bizarre marketplace, where a prestigious science is being sold off, the way inferior goods are sold at an unlicensed street market. I don’t care how many ignoramuses have failed to receive such licenses, but I am shocked to think of how many have obtained them. Folk medicine — or genuine faith healing — can serve as a source of new means and methods, but they must all be duly checked and certified, according to rigid criteria applicable to any innovative techniques in medicine. If you need experience, a one-week business trip to the United States should suffice, for this is precisely how faith healing is regulated in that country. Naturally, 95% of potential Empedocleses would be rejected at once. Will the rest abandon their dubious careers? No. Yet no such licenses should be issued to such faith healers by any government-run medical institutions. If they want to practice that way, make it mandatory for them to register with the Ministry of Justice (and pay taxes, the way it’s done by those who renovate expensive apartments or work as dog clippers). This will not concern most patients. Nearly two-thirds of them are middle-aged women who believe in miracles and are not interested in licenses. You can’t do anything about this.

What is most important is to retain the value and meaning of a doctor’s diploma, compared to a quack’s “certificate” (despite the fact that certain physicians are willing to part with their primogeniture in return for a sum of money). We will not stay impoverished forever, but a physician’s prestige is easy to sell and hard to buy. I am not prepared to argue the importance of the Academy of Medical Sciences of Ukraine in the world, but something must be done about its Medical Institute, which has turned into a center of sham science under the Academy’s auspices. I don’t know anyone over there and I haven’t confronted anyone, so I can address my colleagues in good faith, reminding them of that age-old adage: Medicus, cura te ipsum! Physician, heal thyself! Shame on you, gentlemen!