Incompleat Iconoclast » Medicine http://incompleaticonoclast.com The creative writing blog of Edward F. Gumnick Wed, 08 Jun 2011 21:27:27 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1 Exercise #26: Not Wearing It http://incompleaticonoclast.com/exercise-26-not-wearing-it/ http://incompleaticonoclast.com/exercise-26-not-wearing-it/#comments Sun, 07 Mar 2010 04:43:54 +0000 Edward F. Gumnick http://incompleaticonoclast.com/?p=232 Dr. Schollman says it doesn’t matter if I wear my hat or not, and that the important thing is that I take the pills, take all the pills, take the pills every day, the blue pills that the pharmacist counts with big steel tweezers on a white tray into the bottle one two three four [...]]]> Dr. Schollman says it doesn’t matter if I wear my hat or not, and that the important thing is that I take the pills, take all the pills, take the pills every day, the blue pills that the pharmacist counts with big steel tweezers on a white tray into the bottle one two three four five and so on until there is one for every day of the month and then I am supposed to come back for more, But it’s very important, Billy, says the pharmacist—this is the pharmacist talking to me now, not Dr. S—It’s very important, Billy, that you take your pill every day.

But I know that the pills are like the hat in the way Dr. S and the pharmacist see the world, the pills are like my hat for not having to see the men without eyes who sit on benches, the men with glasses but no eyes who ride the subway, standing just behind someone, standing out of sight when I look again to see if what I saw the first time was right, that there is a man without eyes who follows me onto the subway, who sits in the park, who sits by the carousel like he is waiting for someone, but I know that it is me that he is waiting for.

Dr. S says, In any case, if these men are real, which I do not concede that they are, mind you, but if these men are real, Billy, do you see any reason to believe that they mean you any harm? And I think I am being very clever when I say that what I see isn’t as important as what they see, since they are the men with no eyes, and when I leave his office, there is one of them using the ATM across the street, I can see the bare smooth eyeless skin of his face reflected in the stainless steel panel above the machine, and I know that he is watching me, though he doesn’t know I know.

I know because I am not wearing my hat. I always see better when I am not wearing it.

Note: The prompt was to write about a piece of clothing that your character refused to wear. Sometimes I like an opportunity to go to a crazy place. Makes me appreciate my sanity, such as it is.

© 2010 Edward F. Gumnick

This post is an exercise that I wrote as part of the Fall 2008 50/50 Workshop, on which I began work in September 2008. (I’m still—again—working on it as of August 2010.) Read a description of the 50/50 workshop, or view all of the Fall 2008 50/50 posts.

]]> http://incompleaticonoclast.com/exercise-26-not-wearing-it/feed/ 0 Book Review: Trick or Treatment http://incompleaticonoclast.com/book-review-trick-or-treatment/ http://incompleaticonoclast.com/book-review-trick-or-treatment/#comments Wed, 01 Apr 2009 20:49:20 +0000 Edward F. Gumnick http://incompleaticonoclast.com/blog/?p=140

In Trick or Treatment: The Undeniable Facts About Alternative Medicine, Simon Singh and Edzard Ernst, M.D., set out to analyze the scientific literature on acupuncture, homeopathy, chiropractic, herbal medicine, and a host of other modalities of so-called alternative and complementary medicine. The book begins with a long, fascinating chapter about the history of medicine and [...]]]>

In Trick or Treatment: The Undeniable Facts About Alternative Medicine, Simon Singh and Edzard Ernst, M.D., set out to analyze the scientific literature on acupuncture, homeopathy, chiropractic, herbal medicine, and a host of other modalities of so-called alternative and complementary medicine. The book begins with a long, fascinating chapter about the history of medicine and the emergence of the modern, evidence-based approach to medicine—i.e., conventional, Western, or allopathic medicine. Their stated purpose is to keep an open mind while applying the principles of evidence-based medicine to popular alternative modalities. Their backgrounds as medical outsiders and the careful, measured language of the introduction gave this skeptical reader confidence that the authors would be able to satisfy this goal.

But in my case, Singh and Ernst were preaching to the choir. I listen regularly to several podcasts that focus on science and skepticism (e.g., QuackCast and The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe) and I follow medical news and blogs (e.g., Science‑Based Medicine). So I probably have a better idea of the current medical consensus on some of these modalities than most members of the general public. I was not surprised by their conclusions, which found most alternative modalities to fall somewhere in the range between barely useful and downright dangerous.

I know a lot of alt-med True Believers, though, and I fear that Singh and Ernst are overly optimistic about the willingness of the proponents of alternative medicine to rely on science as the best way of understanding the world. Any sensible person who’s willing to spend 10 minutes googling “homeopathy” can figure out pretty quickly that this particular form of “medicine” has absolutely no plausible mechanism, and yet Americans spent $1.5 billion on homeopathic remedies in 2000. I suspect that believers in complementary and alternative medicine don’t want to know what science has to say about these modalities, because they don’t know enough about science to evaluate its conclusions. I would enthusiastically prescribe Trick or Treatment for anyone who’s interested in the facts about alternative treatment modalities. But I make no promises that it will cure the lack of intellectual curiosity that infects the alt-med True Believer.

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