Sickness and Salvation

Letters

Vol. 11 No. 19 · 12 October 1989

From Patrick Curry

Sylvia Lawson’s enthusiasm for the strengths of Rosalind Coward’s The Whole Truth: The Myth of Alternative Health (LRB, 31 August) leads her to gloss over at least one striking problem. That is the way Coward lumps together all and any alternative remedies, therapies and philosophies. Whether by design or not, she has thus simply adopted the rhetorical strategy of mainstream medicine and science, whose institutions have an obvious interest in discrediting any alternatives. We are all familiar with this technique, otherwise known as damning through association, and often used against the Left. (Let’s assume Coward is a socialist: would she herself therefore accept a close association with revolutionary communism?)

Such a crude strategy diminishes the value of her book. What worries me particularly is that in adopting it, she aligns herself willy-nilly with people whose views are highly problematic in relation to one of her aims (which I happen to share): namely, greater social and political awareness, and therefore more real choice, in such matters. It is useful to recall here (and I for one shall never forget) a recent late-night television show. It featured a smug and aggressively-biased Jonathan Miller, mixing personal abuse with laughable positivist nostrums, and John Maddox, the fearsome editor of Nature, in full cry after a bemused Frenchman – and the only working scientist present – whose crime was to have conducted research the results of which could be construed as supporting homeopathy. I can assure Coward that these people have even less interest in politicising or democratising medical discourse than your average faith-healer. Yet by its approach, her book casts its lot in with them, and will undoubtedly prove (selectively quoted) grist to their mill.

We do need a sharp social critical sense – but one set firmly in the context of a pluralist medical glasnost, and not restricted to a highly interested and selective debunking. The latter will only strengthen those whose complacency and arrogance has already contributed considerably (in ways which Coward leaves unexamined) to the rise of alternative medical practices. In that case, she cannot complain if people continue to put matters of health and disease into other hands, including their own; and even if that does offend a marxisante sensibility, one which whispers that since structure is more real or important than agency, most agents are fools, and personal responsibility largely a chimera. I imagine the BMA would agree.

Patrick Curry
London W14

From Ursula Debreczeni

As far back as 4600 years ago, herbalists in China began to experiment on the human body and went on to discover the pulsory system, acupuncture, anesthesia, the circulatory system, all internal organs, human anatomy, physiology and pathology. They concluded that good health was the result of maintaining harmony and balance in the body with proper nutrition. Attention was also given to suppleness, beauty and longevity, and herbs were consumed to strengthen and control the brain. Since records were kept of these studies (some on jade), they cannot be considered mythical and to regard them as ‘alternative’ in any way is woefully provincial. As someone returned to life and high energy by eating herbal foods based on the knowledge gained nearly five thousand years ago, I can testify to the ingeniousness of past and present studies in this field. However, as one of those ‘transformed individuals’ (as Ms Coward would call me), I am now surprised by the amount of people who choose (however unconsciously) to be ill rather than to be well. This is perfectly understandable to me and if Ms Coward has not discovered that it does take an act of will to face health (which can sometimes be as frightening as sickness), then she has not looked deeply into the psychology of disease. I would not dare to say where the mind takes over from the body, or vice versa, where sickness is concerned. But I am sure of one thing: an open mind is a good beginning to a healthy and harmonious way of life.

Ursula Debreczeni
New York

Vol. 11 No. 21 · 9 November 1989

From Sebastian Cody

We at After Dark (an Open Media production for Channel Four) noticed with interest Patrick Curry’s letter on alternative medicine (12 October). He refers to a recent late-night television show and I suspect he means an edition of After Dark. However, for the record, our programme ‘Alternative Medicine’ was not broadcast all that recently (it went out on 3 September last year, over a year ago) and although Jonathan Miller was present, as was a French scientist, ‘John Maddox, the fearsome editor of Nature’, was not on the programme; nor is Mr Curry’s statement that there was only one working scientist present an accurate reflection of the composition of that night’s programme.

Sebastian Cody
London W12