Doctors

Shatamárii bhavet vaedyah sahasramárii cikitsakah [“If one kills a hundred people, one may qualify as a quack, but if one kills a thousand people, one can qualify to be a doctor”].

It is both amusing and infuriating, yet it is true. Like an old barber, a young doctor cannot be trusted.

But this is not the end of the matter.

It is possible to earn the name shatamárii [one who has killed a hundred people] or sahasramárii [one who has killed a thousand people] by killing mice or guinea pigs in laboratory experiments, but is it not tragic if the killing continues after one has qualified as a doctor?

No matter what country you belong to, tell me honestly, how many doctors can you really trust and respect? Among the doctors you know, you may believe in one or two at the most, but those who have won your faith may or may not command your respect.

In other words, the doctors whom you believe in, who can cure a patient, are not accessible because they cost too much.

In such circumstances your confidence in the ability of doctors remains intact, but you cannot consider them as friends; nor do you have any real proof of their humanity, hence you cannot give them your respect either.

Moreover, the medical profession as such has more to do with social service than with professionalism. Social service is the main aim of the medical profession. But then social workers cannot live on air, so they have to accept some money for their livelihood from the government, autonomous bodies, public institutions or ordinary people: in short, from those they serve. To be a doctor may appear to be a way of earning a living to an unemployed person, but it cannot be categorized as a business under any circumstances. A helpless person, no matter how great his or her financial, social or intellectual capacity, considers a doctor to be a ray of light in the darkness or a lifeboat which can save him or her from drowning.

Of all the doctors you have come across, how many are idealistic and dutiful? If you visit a doctor, he or she will prescribe strong medicines for a light illness. This will inevitably be the case if he or she owns his or her own dispensary. But the same will be the case if the doctor operates a “chamber practice” out of his or her home; he or she will force some patent medicine down the patient’s throat. The doctor’s special “mixture” will also be prescribed as a matter of course. Here, of course, I am referring particularly to allopaths. The most disconcerting thing is that they frequently diagnose a case by guesswork. An examination of the blood, stool or urine often reveals that their diagnosis was totally wrong; yet the patient depends on the doctor’s guesswork and as a result is required to swallow medicine after medicine. Is this not deplorable? What a cruel joke that doctors do such things to helpless patients!

Methods of medical treatment

Current methods of medical treatment can be roughly divided into 3 groups.

1. Use of strong pills and injections.

This is the most common method to fight disease.

Allopathy, ayurveda and hekemii (hakims) are in this group. They use strong medicines and also poison as a medicine, although their methods of diagnosis and remedies differ.

Their selection of medicines involves great risk because:

• more emphasis is placed on the indications of the disease than on those of the patient
• there is a possibility of causing death.

The great danger in diagnosing illnesses and prescribing medicines according to the germs and diseases present in the body is that it is nearly impossible to arrive at a firm conclusion about the precise nature of germs.

Whether diseases are caused by germs or germs are created from diseases which are caused by other factors is a matter of controversy.

The symptoms of one disease may be identical to those of another. The remedy for one may prove to be completely ineffective or even harmful in the case of the other.

Moreover, the poisons used may seriously affect the patient’s vitality.

There was a time when diagnosing illnesses and prescribing medicines were not very difficult because diagnoses were based on 3 constituents of the body:

1. Air
2. Bile
3. Phlegm

Blood was a fourth constituent.

But increased physical and glandular complexity has led to a corresponding increase in the number and complexity of diseases.

So to what extent can this method of diagnosis be useful to a doctor? Is it not simply guesswork to prescribe medicines for a particular disease when the medicine is prescribed for the disease but the disease is diagnosed according to the bodily constituents?

The principles, application and philosophy of homoeopathy are completely different.

Homoeopathy treats the symptoms of the patient, not the disease or its symptoms.

So there is very little possibility of causing harm, even if the diagnosis is not quite correct.

An observant doctor with a subtle sense of discrimination can easily prescribe remedies according to the patient’s symptoms.

Another speciality of homoeopathy is that medicines are administered in subtle doses, not in the form of strong tablets, and such doses quickly become active in the molecules of the patient’s body and his mental sphere.

The greatest difficulty with homoeopathy is that:

• it is based on the doctor’s subtle intellect
• to achieve such a degree of subtlety regular, sustained effort is absolutely essential.

Yet homoeopathic treatment is generally quite slack.

Slackness is particularly evident in the proficiency of homoeopaths.

Anybody can become a homoeopath by studying a few books. No one will object. In most countries there are no proper regulations either.

Surgery and injections are not acceptable to homoeopathic philosophy, but in certain instances the need for surgery as well as injections cannot be denied.

Nowadays surgery is gradually being incorporated into homoeopathy. This is definitely a positive development.

Naturopathy

Naturopaths do not believe in using medicine.

They think that it is possible to cure patients through the gifts of nature only – through earth, water, light, heat and air, together with a proper diet.

I do not deny that this is possible, but it is also often difficult to gradually and completely attune the body to nature.

People should recognize that medicine does not cure disease, rather nature cures disease with the help of the body’s own healing power.

Medicine only helps to accelerate the activity and speed of the healing process.

In cases where disease is caused by unnatural activity, I do not see the harm in using medicines to help nature.

Just as earth, water and air are medicines, are not various types of medicines also prepared by selecting ingredients from nature?

A person not engaged in unnatural activity can still get a disease due to pollution in the air, earth or water.

• It might not be possible to attune the body to nature in such cases.

Furthermore, the diets and lotions prescribed by naturopaths are often very expensive and beyond the means of the poor.

I do not disagree with this assertion of the Rgveda Ápascavishvabheśajii [“Water is the universal remedy”].

I have a deep regard for various aspects of hydropathy and naturopathy,

But I do not agree that all types of medicine and surgery are harmful.

I also do not believe: Biná cikitsáy yata lok mare tár cáite beshii lok cikitsáy mare [“More people die with medical treatment than without it”]

This is because in the acute stage of an illness, even very poor people try to get medical treatment.

I do not think such views are worth commenting on.

Nevertheless, the majority of those who die under the care of doctors die due to incorrect diagnoses and wrong prescriptions.

All medical systems can be equally faulted for wrong diagnoses.

But as far as wrong prescriptions that lead to death, I think more blame should fall on those who use heavy doses of medicine.