<Pharmaceuticals derived from plants include taxol, ipecac, quinine, digitalis, atropine, codeine, cocaine, ephedrine, etoposide, morphine, yohimbine, vinblastine, vincristine, and my own favorite, caffeine.>
That's what I meant by taking a bit of truth and stretching it all the way into your wallet. Of course plants are full of pharmacologically active chemicals. They've been waging war since the first bug started eating them a billion years ago [give or take an eon]. We and they have developed in an attack, counterattack mode [mostly from our primate relatives' need to eat] for all of evolutionary history.
Plants use neurotoxins, spikes, nerve hurters, hallucinogens and thousands of chemicals in the battle. Some of those chemicals are effective in, for example, cancer treatment, because the cancer cells in their highly reproductive state are vulnerable to the poisons which kill in the reproducing cells. The rest of our cells survive the attack [mostly, though a lot of the good cells die too] and the cancer is cured [with some luck, timing etc].
The herbalists take the fact that some chemicals are sometimes useful and distort that into a dishonest charlatan industry preying on ignorant people [and drug habits].
My parents took photos of a thyroid operation done using acupuncture in the early 1970s. They were told it was only acupuncture. I'm doubtful. Heroin has an effect on pain too. Maybe there was a bit of that used as well. What else? But maybe relaxation, hynotherapy and endorphins are good enough for some things, especially with some morphine included. Barbaric surgeons in the west used to simply poison people with chloroform or ether until they were unconscious. I'd take the endorphins etc any day! [Having suffered the barbaric chloroform technique as a child].
Don't forget, Uri Geller could bend spoons on tv and magicians can levitate people and do all sorts of tricks.
Let's not be too credulous.
Mq |
