I really must lighten up

Prof. Colquhoun has noticed my last post and accused homeopaths of being ‘deluded’ and concluded that my ‘paranoid tone’ is an indication that they (presumably those whom I’ve dubbed The Disciples of Scientism) are ‘winning’. Reading this I realised that ‘losing’ is far less of a problem for me than forgetting to take my anti-psychotic medication!

He also accused me of getting my facts wrong about that letter to Directors of Commissioning which I apparently incorrectly alleged was on NHS paper. I don’t have the stomach to discuss this anymore. I got my information here on the website of the Department of Health. They believe in an ‘evidence-based’ society so they should have ‘evidence’ to justify sending out such a message. The Department of Health uses the word ‘inappropriate’ about the use of the NHS logo so I suggest he take up the argument with them and not me.

Finally he denies accusing homeopaths of lying to their patients. But he has posted:

This suggests that, in order to maximise the placebo effect, it will be important to lie to the patient as much as possible, and certainly to disguise from them the fact that, for example, their homeopathic pill contains nothing but lactose.

Okay, maybe somehow that can be read in a way that doesn’t accuse homeopaths of routinely lying to their patients – but it’s not easy to avoid being left with that impression.

He also accuses me of posting ‘splenetic comments’. Now this observation really hit home. Maybe I can’t do much about my ‘paranoid tone’ and being ‘deluded’ because these may be symptoms of a previously undiagnosed medical condition.

Now sing Sondheim’s lyrics to the music of Leonard Bernstein from the wondrous musical, West Side Story:

Right! Officer Krupke, you're really a square
This boy don't need a judge, he needs an analyst's care
It's just his neurosis, that oughta be curbed
He's psychologically disturbed

However for venting spleen even on one occasion, I must be contrite; there is quite enough splenetic expression in the world without me adding to it. So please forgive me that dear reader. I will endeavour to be light and breezy from hereon out.

Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about it. (Oscar Wilde)

So I’ll try not to be too serious either. They say that if you take life too seriously you may end up with a serious dis-ease and I’m not keen on that either.

Actually this may be a very good time to start to talk about other aspects of whole person medicine. So in a non-splenetic spirit of reconciliation and tender feelings between members of the medical profession, in my next post I will write about a form of whole person medicine that is far from well-known (I’m not talking about something we would obviously agree on such as treating syphilis with Penicillin here*), extremely effective and enthusiastically endorsed by both myself and none other than the very doctor I challenged to a duel on a point of honour, Prof. Edzard Ernst!

* Here is a joke by my friend, the Scottish comedian, Arnold Brown that goes something like this: ‘Whenever I hear someone criticise Scots for being hard-drinking, uncouth Rab C. Nesbitt type characters, I say: “Thank Heavens Alexander Fleming sobered up long enough to discover Penicillin"