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 Lest you think that quack treatments are on the way out, let this collection from Canada's CBC refresh your memory. There is very little commentary on the photos, though a spirited debate rages in the comments below.
"Ancient wisdom" persists even today. Often it does no harm; sometimes it's deadly. What it isn't is progressive – no one is learning how to "perfect" these techniques or make them better, because no one is thinking about mechanisms or trying to explain their efficacy (or lack thereof). Modern medical science, on the other hand, is a never ending quest for the next better thing and we have much better things now.
So while these pictures are interesting, quirky, and in some cases downright silly, other pictures are truly astounding.
Yesterday, I received a call from none other than James Randi. This is hardly surprising – I work for the man – but he called me overjoyed at something he had just recevied that morning. It was the data from his recent PET scan.
A PET scan is a diagnostic tool. It doesn't treat anything, nor is it designed to. But it does allow you to look through the human body without a single incision. Think about that for a moment. We can now see inside the human body without damaging it.
It wasn't "ancient wisdom" that brought us this; it was the curiousity and entrepreneurial spirit of men and women over the years working hard to solve problems and make things better. And the reason that there is no one making, say cupping, "better" is that it either doesn't do anything, or better pain relief modalities have been found.
Randi let me play with the included software a bit. I was able to travel anywhere in his body and see whatever was there. It was truly magical, but unlike magic, it was real. Do I understand how it works? Only a little bit. I understand that Positron Emission Tomography bombards the body with gamma rays, and this allows radioactive glucose which has been introduced into the body to be detected in three dimensional space. Certain tissues, such as cancer, absorb and create "bright spots" in the images that can alert doctors to problems. That's a pretty rudimentary explanation. For all I know, it really is magic – so what's so different between this and any of the things shown in those pictures?
One thing: it will change over time. The PET scan, amazing as it is, will be replaced by something even better. Science is not static. It evolves and gets more effective. "Ancient wisdom" modalities fail to do this. A ritual is created and sealed. There is one right way to do things, and that's the end of it. It's rather like religion.
Randi's last PET scan six months ago revealed no signs of the cancer that once plagued him, though the results aren't in for this particular scan. By the way, that cancer was treated with a modern herbal remedy known as "chemotherapy." Over the last thousand years or so, doctors have learned that certain plants have properties that can be useful for humans, and they've worked tirelessly to optimize them for a particular purpose. And one of those purposes is curing cancer, which chemotherapy does very effectively.
If you're a fan of ancient wisdom, enjoy. But I'll be looking forward to the new wisdom that research and science will bring us. And thanks to Travis Roy of Granite State Skeptics for showing me the gallery.
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(But only if you count the tracer that was injected as part of the body.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positron_emission_tomography