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 | "New Ways for Old" |  |
| Since there has arisen the new discipline of PsychoNeuroImmunology, its followers have wisely devoted a great deal of time to finding a commonly acceptable terminology. Now, when they use a particular word or turn of phrase, they are able to relate to the same areas of reference. Not only are they happily integrating their own fields of expertise, they are also opening their portals to the consideration of folklore and some of the alternative methodologies. Philosophy is finding its place alongside statistical analysis. Harris Dienstfrey, in his book "Where the Mind Meets the Body", has brought together details of some of the diverse fields of knowledge that are now being studied. He tells the fascinating stories of seven major investigations by pioneers in the emerging field of mind/body medicine. He is like a traveller to a fabled land who not only brings back tales of strange happenings but is concerned with the question of how we might consciously exploit these findings. He tells of the research that showed that attitude was the deciding factor in two thirds of the cases of death by heart disease among a group of 3,154 men who were the subjects of an eight year long study. |
| In another chapter he relates how 30 hypertensive people were taught to lower their blood pressure by thinking that they wanted to lower their blood pressure. Another person suffered from total paralysis after having his spinal cord severed by a gunshot wound. For months he worked at strengthening his arm muscles so that he could get himself upright on crutches. He then found that his blood pressure was so low that any attempt to sit up caused him to pass out. He learned to raise his pressure to twice the normal in order that he could lead a more active life. Other people learned to raise the temperature of individual parts of their bodies by as much as 130°F. Still others learned how to talk to their immune systems, boosting their resistance to otherwise fatal diseases. Dienstfrey tells of the discovery of Endorphins, opiate like drugs that the mind can produce when stimulated by wilfully induced emotions. The stories range from people who stopped blood flowing during surgery to a group of women who increased the size of their breasts by 10cm.(4"). One important passage is as follows: "With the 'trial and error mind', the 'mind' does its job through a form of chance. It knows where it wants to go but does not know how to get there. It stumbles forward until, in time and with luck, it finds the right path, or part of it. This is the 'mind' that proceeds in fits and starts, and that does not know how it arrived at its goal after it gets there. This is the 'mind' that often must depend on outside authorities. When this 'mind' tries to speak to the body, it mumbles and does not complete sentences, and hopes to hear back that it has been understood." |
| No medicine that seeks to treat the ills of the body via mind, is possible without an aware mind - a mind that makes its own choices. But why should we wait until we are already sick before learning how to use our own minds to such benefit? I have no axe to grind in regards to the medical profession, and believe that without them society would collapse. Neither do I think that it is a healthy practice to take our every complaint to a doctor and sit back to wait for him or her to work miracles. When we have such marvellous capabilities within us it seems reasonable that we should be actively engaged in helping ourselves. The mind/body has its own wisdom. Suppose we hurt an arm in an accident. The internal repair system swings into action. The wounded area becomes suffused with liquids that cause it to swell. This is the system's way of providing a splint to stop us from using the affected organ. The pain acts as a steady warning to us not to use the limb. The affected area, indeed the whole body, will undergo a swift rise in temperature. This is its way of killing off bacterial or viral invaders, as they will be cooked at a temperature which is a few degrees lower than that which will kill us. Yet a doctor will frequently give us drugs to bring down the swelling, stop the pain, and lower our temperature. Makes one think! Too many medical people seem to take it as a personal affront, or accuse one of having a morbid interest in one's health if a patient requests an expert assessment of a problem and details of all medication given. I once read that the Chinese had a custom whereby they would pay their doctors for as long as they were healthy. Once they fell sick, all payments ceased until they were once more back on their feet. Interesting, but I doubt that it would be practical in today's society that produces victims with the same uncaring attitude that it produces pollution. |
| Due to our linear way of thinking we have the habit of seeing individual subjects in nature as being contained in separate cubby-holes, on separate levels. Textbooks reinforce this with diagrams showing mankind at the top of a pyramid of lesser life forms, or at the zenith of a closed circle. This gives a very distorted perception of the way things are. We get a more realistic view of the reality of life when we look at the sea. Most of us are familiar with the contents of a single drop of water as seen under a microscope. Each drop is an ecosphere of swarming life. Microbes in countless numbers; replicating, feeding, working to expand their minute territories. If we extrapolate from that single drop to the oceans of the world we realise that the fish, crustaceans, whales, and other life that is visible to the naked eye, are existing in a soup of life. It not only surrounds them, it permeates their structures. They are not insulated against those other myriad life-forms, they are part of them. Microbes flow in their mouths, work in their stomachs, colonise the spaces between their scales. "It is a misconception to think that all microbes are dangerous to life. Without them, we would cease to function. Far from being the deadly enemies of mankind, they can be preventers of world-wide plagues. Their spheres of influence blanket the world. Microbes in their teeming millions are constantly at work, breaking down larger particles into their basic elements. Each type is a specialist at what it does. Many differing types exist in colonies, passing the end product of their labours onto the next in line for further processing. They can take the filthiest of raw sewage from our cities and reduce it to its basic elements, returning water purer than that which comes from our taps. They can attack a handkerchief and reduce it within a single week; breaking it down to the minerals, liquids and gases from which it was made. When Sadam Hussein's armies released half a million tons of crude oil into the Arabian Gulf in 1990, there was fear of a major ecological disaster. That it didn't eventuate was solely due to microbes. Vast rafts of slime developed, binding the oil together to stop it spreading. Each single gram of those rafts held up to a million cells of bacteria that existed by reducing the oil and its derivatives to the carbon and energy-providing minerals that they needed to survive." Bernard Dixon,"Power Unseen, How microbes rule the world" |