Recently I came across an interesting speech on alternative medicine which impressed me for a number of reasons. It made me think of a little game: the first person who correctly guesses who its author is, and posts the right answer as a comment on this blog, will receive a free copy of my new book A SCIENTIST IN WONDERLAND.
Here are 2 paragraphs from the speech in question:
It is known that not just novel therapies but also traditional ones, such as homeopathy, suffer opposition and rejection by some doctors without having ever been subjected to serious tests. The doctor is in charge of medical treatment; he is thus responsible foremost for making sure all knowledge and all methods are employed for the benefit of public health…I ask the medical profession to consider even previously excluded therapies with an open mind. It is necessary that an unbiased evaluation takes place, not just of the theories but also of the clinical effectiveness of alternative medicine.
More often than once has science, when it relied on theory alone, arrived at verdicts which later had to be overturned – frequently this occurred only after long periods of time, after progress had been hindered and most acclaimed pioneers had suffered serious injustice. I do not need to remind you of the doctor who, more than 100 years ago, in fighting puerperal fever, discovered sepsis and asepsis but was laughed at and ousted by his colleagues throughout his lifetime. Yet nobody would today deny that this knowledge is most relevant to medicine and that it belongs to the basis of medicine. Insightful doctors, some of whom famous, have, during the recent years, spoken openly about the crisis in medicine and the dead end that health care has maneuvered itself into. It seems obvious that the solution is going in directions which embrace nature. Hardly any other form of science is so tightly bound to nature as is the science occupied with healing living creatures. The demand for holism is getting stronger and stronger, a general demand which has already been fruitful on the political level. For medicine, the challenge is to treat more than previously by influencing the whole organism when we aim to heal a diseased organ.
85 Responses to If you guess the author of this speech, I will send you a free copy of my new book
Leave a Reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
It sounds like the kind of stuff our heir to the throne just might say, but I’ll have a formal go with David Tredinnick, arch parliamentary wackaloon.
no he wouldn’t be so eloquent and surely would also insert a few factual mistakes
Prince Charles
good guess – but sadly not correct
I wonder if it could possibly be His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales. God Bless Him – he does try hard. A Prince in Wonderland if ever there was one.
no, someone else already thought so – but it’s incorrect
Gandhi?
wrong, sorry
If allowed a second guess I would say – Hitler?
no, not Hitler either
It’s eloquently written, so my guess is an author: C.S. Lewis maybe?
sorry, not correct
Luc Montagnier 🙂
no, not he
He could have said something like this…
sorry, no
A younger Dr. Edzard Ernst?
very funny – but wrong
At the risk of upsetting my blog host, I wonder if (well the first paragraph at least) this is something you might have said when taking up your position at Exeter? So my is guess Edzard Ernst!
not upsetting but wrong
Could it be Radovan Karadzic (working as a homeopath at the time of his arrest)?
nice – but incorrect
Saatchi?
nice one!
but wrong
hmm. puerperal fever trial was 1847. So “more than 100 years ago” points to a speech in the 50s/60s. Sticking to my author-theory I give it another go (if I may) with Tolkien?
sorry, no
John Paul II? I’ve had too many goes. My apologies.
no
It’s a puzzling text to me. It seems clear to me that the author is more educated than your run-of-the-mill quack, but is nevertheless trying to peddle unproven and disproven wish-thinking. I would guess Dr. Peter Fisher.
sorry no
Bertrand Russell
sorry, no
It sounds like a Chiropractor: Too late for D.D Palmer. Possibly B.J Palmer?
sorry, wrong
Okay, Second Guess: Andrew Weil?
no
Tony Blair?
no
or Cherie Blair?!
no
It is from a speech by Reichsminister Rudolf Hess at the 12th International Homeopathy Congress in 1937.
CORRECT!!!
send me your postal address and I will post the book to you
Well done Emil!
I would certainly never have guessed it was Hess.
Fantastic! I would have needed at least a year or more to ever even think of the possibility. I was looking in a completely different –and wrong– direction, namely that the text had to be a preview of a hitherto undelivered speech. While I had been thinking of Dr. Oz, I was intent on posting a new guess, Deepak Chopra, because I think Dr. Oz is just not cultured enough.
This post was a great lesson, and I don’t know who deserves more congratulations: Prof. Ernst for creating it or Emil Karlsson for solving it. I also think it is a wonderful demonstration of how quackery just rehashes the same arguments over and over without ever being bothered by any evidence.
I had some role in solving this. For those interested in how it was tracked down, first came the suspicion that the original was not in English, for one reason that finding who said it would be trivial, for another reason that there were all these discursive dependent clauses characteristic of literary German, for a third reason that Ernst is himself German and would be familiar with the putative original material. On the hypothesis that the original text was German, a number of different Google queries were tried, focusing on words that would be relatively uncommon in other German texts and therefore narrowing the results down to the desired original. It was suspected that “Blutvergiftung” (“sepsis”, literally “blood poisoning”) would not correspond to “Unblutvergiftung” (“asepsis”), the latter formulation sounding too clumsy to be a real word, so ultimately the following query was tried:
Homöopathie “Sepsis und Asepsis”
The one and only result for this query was a Word document containing a speech by Rudolf Hess. This can be found here:
http://www.wk-institut.de/Homoopathenkongress1937.doc
I’m wondering if it’s not a quack at all…
Two guesses (if I’m permitted): Austin Bradford Hill or Archie Cochrane.
interesting guesses, but wrong
Dana Ullman. On a good day, and possibly with a proofreader
nice one, but not correct
Ullman? You’ve got to be joking!
Yes; but I think this is the way Dana Ullman writes in his own imagination
Imagination? Is there some other Ullman?
HRH Prince Charles ?
no
Rats! I looked over the entries and somehow missed the prior attempts at the prince 🙂 Then perhaps his mother 🙂
she never speaks on alt med, no
Greg Clark ?
sorry, wrong
Laurence Foss?
no
How about Andrew Weil?
no, wrong
I’m struggling with the timeline – Semmelweis and holism being mentioned. But still: my guess is Jeremy Hunt.
good thinking, but incorrect answer
Is it Jeremy Hunt?
no
LOL!
Rupert Murdoch?
oh dear, no
How about Dr Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organization?
interesting guess, but wrong
Actually, given Chan’s recent position on quackery, that’s a very good guess!
Sounds like that quack, Dr Mercola. Sadly, like my cousin too.
wrong
Mike Dixon?
no
Albert Schweitzer?
I simply love this. Kudos to Emil Karlsson (A Swede judging from the name?) for calling this.
I already put Dr. Ernsts new book on my wishlist at Amazon.
thanks
Hess would have spoken hochdeutsch. Do you know who translated this and when? The English is graceful and gives (me) no hint of a German original. The standard grammar and wording suggest someone educated no later than the 1960’s.
I translated it the day when I posted it
Damn, I came to the party too late, but knew it was Hess!
The English is just a bit off centre, so, a translation. The thoughts are those of socialists.
I have inquired into Nazi sympathies with homeopathy for my own book (in preparation) in which I reveal ‘The Secrets of Alternative Medicine’ – and have noted Hess’s enthusiasm and this speech (in a different translation).
I suspect his party wanted all folks to have access to cheap healthcare. Hess was an advocate of holism (as is made clear) – a term invented by Smuts (who wanted to see separate development for blacks and whites in South Africa), had a homeopathic hospital named after him, and sought to promote integrated healthcare.
Does anyone know of another promoter of integrated healthcare who has German connections?
Rudolf Hess
correct – but someone already got it before you [and has been sent the book]
The autor is Rudolf Hess