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From: carter@gatech.CSNET (Carter Bullard)
Newsgroups: net.nlang.africa,net.med
Subject: Re: Is there any benifit in African Medicine
Message-ID: <58@gatech.CSNET>
Date: Wed, 15-May-85 12:57:32 EDT
Article-I.D.: gatech.58
Posted: Wed May 15 12:57:32 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 16-May-85 05:23:02 EDT
References: <958@cbdkc1.UUCP>
Reply-To: carter@gatech.UUCP (Carter Bullard)
Organization: School of ICS, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta
Lines: 52
Xref: watmath net.nlang.africa:30 net.med:1529
Summary: 

In article <958@cbdkc1.UUCP> tjs@cbdkc1.UUCP ( Tom Stanions) writes:
><<<<<<>>>>>>
>
>Let me try and explain one or two differences between African (and other
>natural) medicines and conventional medicine.
>
>
>I guess the simplest way to express a difference is that a "Drug" is not
>natural, if you use drugs then you are not a naturalpathic doctor.


This is all wrong.  Appoximately 45% of all commercially available "drugs"
in the US are vegetable extracts, meaning that you mash up a bunch of plants
and let it soak for a couple of days, filter it and then try your best to either
make it look good or taste good.  Of the remaining 55%, a little over half are
purified mammal organ extracts, you know insulin, thyroid hormone.  Now the process
of purification is not anything more than fancy filtering and a little slow
evaporation, and sometimes some lyophilization( thats freeze drying, you know,
like coffee ).  Out of the ~25% left over, about 20% are bacterial extracts, that
is you grow a bunch of little things that you can't see and then you isolate some
of the molecules that the little bugger thought would be fun to make, like 
streptomycetin, penicillin, erythromycin, you know, most if not all of the anti-
biotics.  That leaves about 5% of all the drugs in the US.  Now this group is the
strickly man made molecules, the synthetic drugs.  The point so far is that
95% OF WESTERN DRUGS ARE COMPLETELY NATURAL.  THAT IS MOTHER NATURE MADE THEM
HERSELF IN HER OWN LITTLE KITCHEN.  It isn't at all different from you yourself
going out into the wilderness in search of wild roots and shrubery in order to
cure your various bunions.  

Now with that in mind, lets look at the reality of some of the western medical
practices.  Diabetes, for instance, is many times caused by a malfunctioning
pancreas.  Now the therapy is to inject the essence of ground up  cow or pig 
pancreas just under the skin.  Birth control therapy is based solely on the idea that
women don't get pregnant if they already are pregnant.  So what does the western
practitioner do but gives his patient a pill that basically is equivalent to
a horses ground up gravid uterus.  The only reason they dont actually give you
real gravid horse uterus is because its easier and cheaper to copy it than to give you
the real thing.  So the whole idea is to make you eat the essence of what you what
to be.  If you carried this idea a little further you may find yourself saying, 
well if I want to be cunning, I ought to eat the brain or heart of a fox
( whichever organ provides the quality of cunning ).

Now I know for a fact that many cannabalistic behaviors are based on this philosophy
and I am very confident that one of the fundamental prinicples of African medicine
is also based on this idea. 
-- 
Carter Bullard
School of Information and Computer Science
Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta, Georgia 30332
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