24
Poetry and the Lust for Power
The hunger of subcultural superorganisms disguises itself in
strange and mysterious ways. Let's return for an example to modern
medicine, which we normally think of as an objective science, above
the mere vagaries of political lust. Like any picture of the invisible
world, medicine wears the austere mantle of objective truth. But in
reality, today's medical beliefs were once an ideology one group used
to seize power from another.
Homeopathy was developed by a German physician named
Samuel Hahnemann in the early 18OO's.43 Hahnemann--who had
studied traditional medicine at Leipzig, Vienna and Erlangen--believed
in giving patients highly diluted dosages of what he called
"remedies."44 These were a vast array of substances that actually
produced low levels of the symptoms they were designed to cure.
Hahnemann was using a principle similar to the one employed today
by "clinical ecologists," medical specialists who treat allergies to food,
pesticides, plastics, and other substances by giving minuscule
quantities of the substance to which the patient is allergic. These
microdoses seem to help the body fight off the allergen's negative
effects. Treatments of this nature have been demonstrated in recent
years to reduce symptoms ranging from depression and uncontrollable
rages to backache and skin irritation.45
It is not surprising, then, that Hahnemann claimed to be able to
treat a tremendous variety of human diseases. His form of medicine
was so successful that by 19OO there were homeopathic medical
schools and hospitals all across America.46 What's more, homeopathy
seemed to work. In the Yellow Fever epidemic of 1878, the mortality
rate of patients treated by traditional methods was 16%. The rate of
death for the patients who had been fortunate enough to find a
homeopathic doctor, on the other hand, was less than half that.47
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