In my October
2006 letter,
I asked a rhetorical question: why, I wondered, is it wrong for a husband
to beat a wife, but okay for a sovereign nation to bomb apartment buildings
and kill husbands, wives, and children? No one responded to this unanswerable
question, although my brother thought my writing was decidedly effete,
because I didn't identify my own position regarding the warring
parties. For the record, I am critical of both sides, and I would prefer
to handle animosities in the conference room or, better yet, in a tent
with a powwow or a tribal dance. How ugly is it to handle our disputes
with guns and explosives! Yet, here we are in the twenty-first century
engaged in much the same aggressive behavior as that favored by Greek
warriors and written about in such lyrical form in the Iliad. Why can't
we evolve beyond the aggression and the bloodshed?
Speaking of philosophical writing, I usually think very favorably of
someone who likes to read and share his or her opinions in a letter
or article. I am
even more impressed if such an individual is gifted enough to read a book every
few days and write the occasional short story or poem. But what is one to think
of an eight-year-old girl who reads two to three books per day and has authored
400 short stories and poems? Adora Svitak has now published a collection of her
stories and poems. She loves to read books on history and fantasy, as well as
on technology and education – the European Renaissance is of particular
interest to her. She started to write at the age of four; her book's title,
Flying Fingers, refers to her own hands flying
over the keyboard. This isn't natural medicine, but it's not every day you are
asked challenging questions
about life and philosophy by an eight-year-old, and such a remarkable collection
is worth noting.
While we're on the subject of collections, the Townsend
Letter office
maintains archives of every past issue since the magazine's inception in 1983.
Occasionally,
we receive a request from a reader who wishes to purchase all the printed issues
of the Townsend Letter.
Our website, www.townsendletter.com, does index all articles, subjects, and authors
in the archives but, unfortunately,
does not offer access
to all articles. We do offer select articles online; other articles are available
only with purchase of the printed back-issue. Readers have requested that we
offer an e-version of the Townsend Letter, and
this is under consideration. In
the interim, two electronic information resources – the Thomson Gale database
(www.gale.com) and EBSCO Publishing
(www.epnet.com) – offer
all our magazine content published after 1990. These sites charge a fee to subscribe
to their
services and a fee for access to the article, but they allow acquisition of Townsend
Letter articles electronically, as needed. Look
Smart's Find Articles offers access to most of our articles from 2001 to
the
present, at no charge.
Pub Med (www.pubmed.gov) is an invaluable web tool for acquiring medical journal
abstracts and articles for many medical and science journals. Regrettably, the
Townsend Letter is not archived by Pub Med.
Reviewing medical literature for the past two decades is comparatively easy now
with the Web; however, retrieving
information from journals published prior to 1970 remains difficult.
Homeopathy and Hydrochloric Acid Therapy: Historical Perspectives
In this issue of the Townsend Letter, Steven Brynoff considers historical perspectives
of homeopathy. During the 1800s, physicians did not have anti-biotics and
corticosteroids to administer during acute infections. Homeopathic preparations
of Belladonna were used prophy-lactically to prevent scarlet fever, while
Aconite was used to treat a similar infection: scarlatina. Using homeopathy
to prevent infectious illness ran counter to the prevailing medical interest,
which favored administering newly invented immunizations to prevent infections.
Brynoff reports that certain homeopathic physicians experienced a lower death
rate during the flu pandemic of 1918 using homeopathic Gelsemium, Arsenicum,
and Bryonia. Is there a role for homeopathy use in twenty-first-century medicine
in preventing infection? Brynoff argues the case that homeopathic prophylaxis
is a vital alternative to the flu shot and an important tool to consider
during a flu p andemic.
Another historical perspective considers the physicians who, earlier in the
twentieth century, were focused on using basic inorganic chemicals for treatment
of infectious disease. Mercury, gold, and arsenic were considered important
tools – albeit ones that produced somewhat limited results – for
treating syphilis, tuberculosis, cholera, and malaria. Medical applications
of chemistry did not always require poisons. In the 1920s, the use of hydrochloric
acid, administered intravenously to treat infection, garnered considerable
and developing interest. In this issue, we introduce a collection of papers
describing the treatment of infection with HCl therapy. The papers were originally
published in the Medical World, edited by Henry Pleasants, MD, and, this month,
we will begin publishing the complete set of articles, Three
Years of HCl Therapy,
in a four-part series on our website, www.townsendletter.com.
World Trade Center Dust Inhalation Respiratory Disease
Five years after the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center, a growing
number of rescue workers and individuals living near Ground Zero are developing
severe respiratory ailments. Largely ignored by federal authorities, many
individuals who had been exposed to the dust of the World Trade Center site
are suffering from chronic obstructive lung disease, secondary to particle
inhalation. Dr. Paul Lioy, Department of Environmental and Occupational Medicine,
Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, has cited the presence of various materials,
found in the dust, that were inhaled or ingested. The explosive jet fuel
contaminated the dust with petroleum byproducts, hydrocarbons, and dioxin,
as well as toxic metals including lead and titanium. The inhaled dust, according
to Lioy, was 50% construction materials, 40% glass and fibers, nine percent
paper cellulose, and one percent asbestos. Nearly 40% of the particulate
matter measure d was found to be less than 50 microns in size, small enough
to easily pass to the alveoli, the breathing sacs of the lungs. Unfortunately,
the majority of the rescue workers and Ground Zero neighborhood residents
have not been evaluated routinely for respiratory illness. The result is
that most individuals developing respiratory illness have been seeking help
from their primary care physicians and have received symptomatic treatment
only.
One medical center in New York City, Mount Sinai Hospital, has set up a referral
center with a federal grant, screening nearly 2,000 workers for respiratory
illness. Diagnostic problems remain difficult in the primary care setting;
a sinus infection may actually represent the aftermath of a chemical burn.
Some workers have progressed from mild to severe respiratory disease. Mount
Sinai Hospital has outlined typical features and diagnostic information for
individuals who have sustained damage from severe inhalation of dust. A summary
of resources is available at www.wtcexams.org.
Medical treatment options should be supported by detoxification approaches
offered by alternative practitioners.
The April 2006 issue of the Townsend Letter discussed a detoxification technique
for 9/11 rescue workers using the Hubbard Sauna regimen. (This
article by Cecchini et al. is reprinted this month on www.townsendletter.com.)
Natural Approaches to Preventing and Treating Colds and Flu
To many of us, a cold is an annoying short-term winter ailment, while the flu
is a much more prolonged and debilitating illness. Theoretically, the cold
virus (rhinovirus) and the influenza virus are distinctly different organisms,
but the symptom presentation is not necessarily so distinct: colds with sore
throats, flu with sinus infections, colds with bronchitis symptoms, and flu
with lung infections. When is symptomatic support with so-called over-the-counter
(OTC) cold formulas sufficient? When is an antibiotic and a corticosteroid
important and necessary? Again, the diagnostic distinctions are not necessarily
so obvious. Low-grade colds and ear infections are inappropriately treated
with antibiotics, while serious sinus infections and pneumonia get treated
with chicken soup and vitamin C. Only when there is full-system failure and
we collapse do we end up hospitalized, receiving intravenous fluids, antibiotics,
and other emergency medications. Preventing systematic, overwhelming infection
is clearly a goal in treating colds and flu. Surviving the symptom distress
of a moderate cold or flu process, although secondary, is still of major
importance, yet rarely requires an antibiotic.
OTC cold formulas, chicken soup, vitamin C, and herbal support remain primary
treatments in cold care. Saline irrigation or inhalation (nebulizer) is very
useful in sinus care and preventing sinusitis. The big question is secondary
care. Do we use herbal formulas and immune-supporting agents in moderation
or intensively during the cold and flu process? Is there value in aggressively
treating colds and flu with intravenous vitamin C, Myer's cocktail, and
other nutrients such as hydrochloric acid or even hydrogen peroxide? In this
issue of the Townsend Letter, we explore these different supportive strategies
for cold and flu management and their complicating secondary conditions.
Of course, a few argue that prevention – not necessarily with the flu
shot – is the best treatment. Natural preventive strategies include the
use of homeopathy, increased vitamin and mineral nutrition, immune-support
formulas, and herbal therapies. However, all prevention strategies require
successful resolution of previous infections; too many individuals have low-grade
infections and/or inflammation that are not satisfactorily treated. Colds and
flu viruses favor opportunistic hosts who have ongoing, untreated, underlying
infection.
Jonathan Collin, MD
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