politics
Exceptionally, this post is unrelated to so-called alternative medicine (SCAM). It addresses a new and worrisome development in UK healthcare. The UK has fewer doctors per population than most other developed countries. This shortage has now reached a level where it puts patients in danger. Recently, the government has unveiled a new NHS plan aimed to fix the problem.
The apprenticeship scheme could allow one in 10 doctors to start work without a traditional medical degree, straight after their A-levels. A third of nurses are also expected to be trained under the “radical new approach”. It is the centerpiece of a long-delayed NHS workforce strategy, following warnings that staff shortages in England could reach half a million without action to find new ways to train and recruit health workers. Amanda Pritchard, the head of NHS England, said: “This radical new approach could see tens of thousands of school-leavers becoming doctors and nurses or other key healthcare roles, after being trained on the job over the next 25 years.” She added that the plan offered a “once-in-a-generation opportunity to put the NHS on a sustainable footing”.
The “medical doctor degree apprenticeship” involves the same training and standards as traditional education routes, including a medical degree and all the requirements of the General Medical Council. Candidates will be expected to have similar A-levels as those for medical school, with qualifications in sciences, as well as options for graduates with non-medical degrees. The key difference behind such models is that apprentice medics would be available on the wards almost immediately, working under supervision, while being paid.
The medical degree apprenticeship is due to launch this autumn.
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I am impressed!
Sadly, not in a positive way.
In fact, I cannot remember having ever heard of a more stupid idea for dealing with doctor shortages.
As incompetent amateurs, do the Tories really think that a similar level of incompetence might work also in healthcare?
Such shortages have happened before.
They are regrettable and need swift and firm action.
The only countermeasure that works is to train more doctors.
REAL DOCTORS!
The German Heilpraktiker (HP), a non-medically trained practitioner of so-called alternative medicine (SCAM), has repeatedly been the subject of my posts. In a nutshell: the profession was created by the Nazis and was originally destined to disappear within one generation. But this did not happen, and today there are ~100 000 HPs who are allowed to treat almost any condition without mandatory training or experience. Many HP schools exist but you can also become an HP without formal training.
Now a report has been published by undercover journalists investigating these HP schools in Germany. Here I have summarized a few crucial passages for you (if you read German, I strongly recommend reading the original article):
There are more than 150 HP schools in Germany. On average, training costs several thousand euros. There is no uniform and state regulation for the training. The curricula are mostly created by the schools themselves.
In addition to medical and psychological content, the schools often offer seminars that are not based on scientific knowledge. The curricula sometimes include courses such as astrology, homeopathy, or so-called quantum healing. HP organizations give indeed training guidelines. However, these are not met by about 83% of the schools.
The students were isolated at the HP school from their environment and urged to break off contact with their families. “Without us you are nothing. That came so often and I then, unfortunately, believed in it, because I was alone. If I had had no one else from school, then I would really have been completely alone,” explains a former student in an interview. “During that time, I also thought for the first time: Are we in some kind of cult here?
The school’s principal rejects the cult accusation: “We have been confronted with the allegation that we are a cult for some time and have always dealt with it very openly because we are not a cult. The principal also denies other accusations made by former students, saying that the allegations of suggestion, coercion, compulsion, or sweeping statements are simply false. He said he would be happy to face them “in a personal conversation outside the public eye to answer their questions.”
In order to get to the bottom of the treatment methods, the reporter also had herself treated by the principal of the school in an undercover self-experiment. In the first session, she determined that the reporter’s sciatica had been passed on to her by her mother, which is why she should sever her ties with her. In the second session, she recommended that she no longer visit her cancer-stricken grandfather. When the principal learned that the ill grandpa was of the zodiac sign Cancer, she concluded, “Cancer gets cancer.” The cancer, she said, was due to the fact that he had done nothing for his soul. And further, the patient runs the risk of adopting the grandfather’s cancer symptoms when she visits him.
The Hamburg health authority, which is listed as a “supervisory authority” on the school’s homepage, explains in response to an inquiry that no official supervision exists for HP schools. To obtain permission for opening a school, no training is necessary. Neither possible training courses nor institutions offering such training courses are regulated by the state.
The journalist also asked the Federal Health Ministry whether it sees the need for action and legal control. The Ministry’s response was evasive: “If necessary,” the HP law should be reformed in the future.
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This is shocking news for many Germans who believe that HPs are well-trained healthcare professionals. However, those who have read my recently published book cannot be surprised. Poor training is only one of a myriad of deficits of HPs. It is time that the government realizes that the current is unacceptable and endangers public health. It is time, in other words, that the government does something about the HP profession.
Following the death from cancer of a 14-year-old Carinthian girl, the Klagenfurt public prosecutor’s office has launched an investigation against the girl’s parents. In February this year, the 14-year-old was taken to a hospital in Graz, Austria, where she died a few days later from cancer. The hospital filed charges because the tumor had been treated incorrectly with so-called alternative medicine (SCAM).
Investigations are underway on suspicion of torturing or neglecting underage, younger, or defenseless persons. Currently, the accused and witnesses are being questioned. The parents’ lawyer, Alexander Todor-Kostic, stated that the accusations were without any basis and claimed that the 14-year-old girl had decided of her own free will against being treated with chemotherapy and surgery. The parents respected this, allowed her alternative treatment methods, and acted in accordance with the applicable legal situation.
The girl had developed cancer the previous year that was not detected. Instead of seeing conventional oncologists for a reliable diagnosis and effective treatments, the parents consulted private doctors. Instead of chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery, the girl had deliberately chosen “alternative treatments” herself, the lawyer stressed.
Even though the case has been reported in several Austrian papers, I did not succeed in finding further details about it. In particular, it is unclear what type of cancer the girl had been suffering from and what type of SCAMs she received.
The Austrian skeptic Christian Kreil commented: “Sugar pills in the pharmacies, homeopathic advanced training for doctors, a proliferation of energetics offering every conceivable bullshit … the dead girl is the logical result of this esoteric foolishness covered by politics and chambers.”
I am afraid that he might have a point here: as we have discussed repeatedly on this blog, Austria is currently particularly prone to misinformation about SCAM. Here are a few examples of previous blog posts on this subject:
- Austrian osteopaths seem to violate legal, ethical and moral rules and conventions
- An open letter to the President of the Austrian Medical Association aims to stop medical quackery
- Has the ‘Vienna Medical Association’ taken leave of its senses?
- When politicians become snake-oil salesmen
- Michael Frass’ research into homeopathy for cancer: “numerous breaches of scientific integrity”
- A well-known opponent of vaccination has died of COVID after self-treatment with MMS
- The case of a boy tortured to death with homeopathy
- A truly perplexing homeopath – is it time for an official investigation?
Misinformation about SCAM can be lethal. This is one of the reasons why responsible information is so very important.
According to a German court ruling, the homeopathic remedy Meditonsin for colds may no longer be advertised with certain statements. The Higher Regional Court in Hamm, Germany made it clear that it shares the opinion of the Regional Court in Dortmund, which had sentenced the marketing company to desist from making statements such as “rapid and reliable reduction of the intensity of the typical cold symptoms”. Such statements falsely generate the impression that therapeutic success can be expected with certainty. The court made it clear that the company’s appeal against the previous ruling was unlikely to be successful. The company subsequently withdrew its appeal today – and the judgment is now legally binding.
The lawsuit filed by a consumer organization was thus successful. It had criticized several statements as unfair and inadmissible advertising. The Dortmund court shared this view in September 2022 – and according to the spokesman, the Higher Regional Court in Hamm now followed the argumentation of the lower court.
The statements that
- “good efficacy and tolerability were once again impressively confirmed by a pharmacy-based observational study”,
- and “all cold complaints showed a clear improvement in the course of the disease”,
were deemed to be misleading advertising. They must therefore be omitted, the ruling stated.
Meditonsin is currently being advertised as follows:
For support of the immune system at the first signs of a cold to help the body build up the defense against pathogens effectively.
In addition, conditions are made more difficult for the intruders – through an effective medicine: the well-known Meditonsin® supports your defenses and naturally fights the onset of inflammation of the ears, nose and throat with pure homeopathic ingredients.
If applied early and correctly, Meditonsin® helps to ensure that the typical unpleasant symptoms have no chance to develop. Because Meditonsin® is particularly well tolerated and protects the organism, it is for both adults and children alike – a family medicine in the best sense.
Meditonsin contains two homeopathic ingredients in the D5 and one in the D8 dilution. To the best of my knowledge, there is no sound evidence that the remedy is effective for anything.
The Charité in Berlin is a medical school with considerable tradition and reputation. It, therefore, seems a little baffling that this institution agreed to the creation of a professorship in anthroposophical medicine, a branch of so-called alternative medicine (SCAM) that is not only highly implausible but also not supported by sound clinical evidence of doing more good than harm.
The TAZ (a well-known and usually reliable German news outlet) has looked into this issue and just published a report of which I translated the main passages (the additions in brackets were added by me):
In December 2010, after a discussion, the Software AG (an anthroposophical Foundation) offered to finance an anthroposophical professorship at the Charité, according to documents available to the taz. The foundation writes on its website that it wants to use its money to advance the “academization of anthroposophic medicine.” A professorship at a famous institution like the Charité seems like a major prize. The Charité is offered the prospect of 250,000 euros per year.
Investing this money is apparently so important to the Foundation that it spends five years courting the Charité for the professorship. When things don’t go fast enough for them, the project manager writes sharp emails to the Charité administration in December 2016: they are “quite irritated and correspondingly annoyed.” They would be happy “if this never-ending story can finally find a positive conclusion.”
The Foundation apparently has already had an idea of who could take up this professorship early on – although professorships are not actually allowed to be advertised “ad personam,” i.e., tailored to a person. In May 2012, it proposes to include the anthroposophical Havelhöhe Hospital in Berlin (we reported about this place before). It would make a clinical area available for this purpose. There had apparently already been an exchange of views on this.
The contract for the “establishment of a temporary W2 endowed professorship for five years” is dated April 15, 2015. It also states that Charité must indicate that the professorship is funded by the Software AG Foundation. Which it then fails to do.
At this point, the professorship has already been publicly advertised. Very specific requirements are formulated in the advertisement: Among other things, expertise in gastroenterology and oncology is desired, as well as research interest in chronic inflammatory bowel diseases. These happen to be the specializations that the medical director of Havelhöhe Hospital has to show: Harald Matthes (we have met him before on this blog).
Matthes lands as “primo et unico loco” on the appointment list, i.e. as the first-ranked and only candidate. Whether anyone else has applied for the professorship at all, the Charité does not want to answer. Normally, there are three people on an appointment list, unless the requirements for the professorship are too niche. When the Faculty Council votes on filling the professorship, it has to take two ballots because the necessary majority is not reached in the first vote. In March 2017, Matthes is finally appointed professor at the Charité. For proponents of anthroposophic medicine, this has historic significance: “It is tantamount to a knighthood for anthroposophic medicine,” says a chronology of the umbrella organization.
Before his appointment, Harald Matthes negotiated a special request: He wants to remain chief physician in Havelhöhe, which is why he formally took a five-year leave of absence on the first day of his professorial career at Charité. This concept is called the “Jülich Model”. Harald Matthes is not the first to exercise his professorship in this way. It is unusual, however, to cooperate with a private hospital; normally, cooperation is arranged with other research institutions.
Matthes’ employer, Havelhöhe Hospital, also benefits financially from the deal. The Charité transfers a large part of the foundation’s money to Havelhöhe – the documents mention an amount equivalent to a W2 salary. In a letter, the dean of the Charité at the time, Axel Radlach Pries, called Matthes’ wishes “unusual and going beyond previous models of endowed professorships at the Charité.”
Also unusual is that Harald Matthes does not teach any courses at Charité, according to the internal course catalog, even though the contract available to taz specifies nine semester hours of teaching per week. In the Jülich model, two hours of teaching per week are the rule.
So Harald Matthes is the big winner in this: He gets a professorial title without many obligations, while at the same time, money flows to his hospital.
But what does the Charité get out of it? The contract for the establishment of the professorship states that new aspects will thus flow into research, teaching, and patient care. Matthes himself says he is convinced that he is contributing to the scientific progress of the institution. Before his professorship expires after five years, he will ask for an extension in August 2021. “I would like to point out that my work and results in research, teaching, and clinical care have led to international recognition and contributed to the reputation of Charité,” he writes. At the time, he is working on the so-called ImpfSurv study, for which people are asked about possible side effects from the Corona vaccine using an online questionnaire. He gets a lot of media attention for it.
In April 2022, for example, Matthes appears on MDR television, his name superimposed under “Charité Berlin.” He presents the interim results of his study: the serious side effects are much more frequent than the Paul Ehrlich Institute, which is responsible for vaccines, would indicate. Only: This cannot be said at all.
The study has methodological flaws, the Charité distances itself from the statements of its professor. People had participated twice in the survey, and it was not scientific to conclude that there was a connection between symptoms and vaccination without the assessment of a doctor. The study is discontinued.
Before that, when the study was still running, the evaluation commission met several times to discuss the extension of the endowed professorship. In doing so, it “thoroughly reviewed all of Prof. Matthes’ achievements.” What exactly the commission recorded is not known. The document released to the taz is extensively redacted.
What is certain is this: In February 2022, the commission votes for the extension for another five years. Anthroposophy may keep its professorship at the Berlin Charité until at least 2027. The anthroposophical foundation now transfers 293,000 euros per year for this.
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The former Vice-Chancellor of Exeter University, Sir David Harrison, has died aged 92. He had a distinguished career including a 10-year tenure as Vice-Chancellor of the University, from 1984-1994. He also held numerous other prestigious roles in academia: 
- Vice-Chancellor at Keele (1979-84),
- Chairman of the Committee of vice-Chancellors and Principals (1991-93),
- President of the Institution of Chemical Engineers (1991-92),
- Master of Selwyn College (1994-2000).
Sir David was educated at Bede School, Sunderland and Clacton County School, before becoming a 2nd Lieutenant in the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers. He subsequently read Natural Sciences at Selwyn College, Cambridge, before receiving a PhD in Physical Chemistry. He then joined the newly formed Chemical Engineering Department doing research into Fluidisation which resulted in three books, all written with his close friend Prof John Davidson. He taught at Cambridge University until 1979, becoming a fellow of Selwyn in 1957 and its Senior Tutor.
Sir David also served as
- President of IChemE in 1991–2,
- Director of the Salters’ Institute of Industrial Chemistry from 1993–2015,
- Chair of the Committee of UK Vice-Chancellors and Principals from 1991–1993,
- Member of the Advisory Committee on the Safety of Nuclear Installations from 1993–1999.
He was also a member of the Ely Cathedral Council and the Royal School of Church Music, served on the Board of Management of the Northcott Theatre in Exeter, and received numerous honors including being knighted in 1997 “for services to education and nuclear safety”.
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Sir David was VC when I was appointed in 1993. Apparently, the appointment committee suspected that I had no intention to leave my (secure for life and much better-paid) post in Vienna and only played a strategic game to improve my position there (as is often done by academics applying for jobs). David thus decided to phone my wife and ask her straight out: “Does your husband really want to come to Exeter?” Her answer was simple: “Yes.”
After I had been appointed, one of my first urgent needs was to separate my chair from the (unbelievably woolly) ‘Centre of Complementary Health Studies” of which I had become a director from the unit I planned to build – by no means an easy task. David easily understood the problem of mixing science with belief and was a great help to the success of this process. Next, I had to persuade all concerned that my task would not be teaching practitioners of complementary medicine (as had been foreseen in a feasibility study of my chair) but to conduct rigorous science. David made it clear that this was not merely a possible but a desirable option (full details about these developments here).
David was a wise VC, a true gentleman, and a most helpful superior. We got on very well thanks to his uncomplicated, direct approach. Whenever there was a significant problem with my job, he used to invite me for a cup of tea in his office, and 15 minutes later the problem was solved. He truly did pave the way for all the independent research we were able to conduct during the years that followed.
I was sad when he left Exeter in 1994 and things gradually became less and less agreeable for me. I owe David much gratitude and respect – RIP.
Social prescribing (SP) has been mentioned here several times before. It seems important to so-called alternative medicine (SCAM), as some enthusiasts – not least King Charles – are trying to use it as a means to smuggle nonsensical treatments into routine healthcare.
SP is supposed to enable healthcare professionals to link patients with non-medical interventions available in the community to address underlying socioeconomic and behavioural determinants. The question, of course, is whether it has any relevant benefits.
This systematic review included all randomised controlled trials of SP among community-dwelling adults recruited from primary care or community setting, investigating any chronic disease risk factors defined by the WHO (behavioural factors: smoking, physical inactivity, unhealthy diet and excessive alcohol consumption; metabolic factors: raised blood pressure, overweight/obesity, hyperlipidaemia and hyperglycaemia). Random effect meta-analyses were performed at two time points: completion of intervention and follow-up after trial.
The researchers identified 9 reports from 8 trials totalling 4621 participants. All studies evaluated SP exercise interventions which were highly heterogeneous regarding the content, duration, frequency and length of follow-up. The majority of studies had some concerns about the risk of bias. A meta-analysis revealed that SP likely increased physical activity (completion: mean difference (MD) 21 min/week, 95% CI 3 to 39, I2=0%; follow-up ≤12 months: MD 19 min/week, 95% CI 8 to 29, I2=0%). However, SP may not improve markers of adiposity, blood pressure, glucose and serum lipid. There were no eligible studies that primarily target unhealthy diet, smoking or excessive alcohol-drinking behaviours.
The authors concluded that SP exercise interventions probably increased physical activity slightly; however, no benefits were observed for metabolic factors. Determining whether SP is effective in modifying the determinants of chronic diseases and promotes sustainable healthy behaviours is limited by the current evidence of quantification and uncertainty, warranting further rigorous studies.
Great! Regular exercise improves physical fitness.
But do we need SP for this?
Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against connecting patients with social networks to improve their health and quality of life. I do, however, object if SP is used to smuggle unproven or disproven SCAMs into EBM. In addition, I ask myself whether we really need the new profession of a ‘link worker’ to facilitate SP. I remember being taught that a good doctor should look after his/her patients holistically, and surely that includes mentioning and facilitating social networks for those who need them.
I, therefore, fear that SP is taking something valuable out of the hands of doctors. And the irony is that SP is favoured by those who are all too quick to turn around and say: LOOK AT HOW FRIGHTFULLY REDUCTIONIST AND HEARTLESS DOCTORS HAVE BECOME. WE NEED MORE HOLISM IN MEDICINE AND THAT CAN ONLY BE PROVIDED BY SCAM PRACTITIONERS!
Austrian doctors recently received a notice in their mailbox about a postgraduate training event that is remarkable, to say the least.
The Vienna Medical Association is organizing a postgraduate training course on “Complementary Medical Homeopathy for Post- and Long Covid“. The date for the event is 20.4.2023. Registration for it is via the Association’s “Department of Complementary and Integrative Medicine”.
In case you ask, what is wrong with such a course? There is no scientific evidence that homeopathy has a specific, positive effect in long/post covid. Therefore the announced event has about the same validity as a lecture series for:
- BUNGEE JUMPING FOR DIABETES
or
- DOUGHNUT EATING FOR CORONARY HEART DISEASE
or
- CIGARETTE SMOKING IN CANCER PREVENTION
While relevant pseudomedicine training courses have in the past been organized by the relevant Austrian SCAM-organizations, the Vienna Medical Association itself is now joining the ranks of the organizers of pseudomedicine training courses. Whereas pseudomedicine has so far been the domain of physicians in private practice in Austria, it now appears to be promoted by the Vienna Medical Association in hospitals as well.
The Vienna Medical Association boldly claims that MEDICAL ETHICS IS THE BASIS OF OUR WORK. Well guess what, guys: teaching nonsense is not very ethical!
The ‘tasks and goals’ of the Association’s ‘Department for Complementary and Integrative Medicine’ of the Vienna Medical Association are explained on their website:
The aim of our department is to represent doctors with additional diplomas in the medical association and to inform about the value of their special therapeutic approaches better than previously – particularly in cases of serious side effects of conventional therapies.
In the sense of conveying up-to-date, high-quality, medical, and complementary education and training in complementary medicine, our department aims to publish relevant articles and announcements of dates of the respective professional societies in the chamber’s own media.
Practice-oriented introductory lectures or study groups on the following topics are also planned topics:
- medical homeopathy,
- psychosomatic relaxation therapy (bipolar harmonising abdominal breathing, autogenic training),
- acupuncture,
- regulation therapy based on skin resistance measurements at acupuncture points,
- TCM,
- herbal therapy, etc.
“Up-to-date, high-quality, medical, and complementary education and training in complementary medicine” – oh really? If the Association’s “Department of Complementary and Integrative Medicine” is truly interested in this, I herewith offer to give a free lecture series for them that would teach them the high-quality evidence truly shows.
Meanwhile, as there is no good evidence that homeopathy is an effective therapy for post/long Covid, the question of whether the ‘Vienna Medical Association’ has taken leave of its senses, must be answered in the affirmative.
I am pleased to announce that our regular contributors ‘DC‘ as well as ‘mimi‘ both correctly guessed the person responsible for the quote about informed consent that was the subject of yesterday’s post. Congratulations to both; that certainly wasn’t easy!
The quote is by Karl Brandt.
Who was Karl Brandt?
Brandt was a young and evidently gifted doctor when, during a series of coincidences, he became a member of Hitler’s ‘inner circle’ and acted as one of Hitler’s personal physicians (originally, he had wanted to join the team of Albert Schweitzer!). Hitler liked the good-looking, ambitious Brandt and thus gave him greater and greater responsibilities and power. Amongst other things, Brandt managed to become in charge of the German euthanasia program which killed about 70 000 patients who the Nazis considered to be ‘useless eaters’ and unworthy of their support. It had the cynical purpose of freeing up hospital beds for the war and cleansing the German gene pool. Brandt also was responsible for many of the unspeakably cruel and immoral medical experiments in the concentration camps.
After the war, Brandt was put on trial in Nuremberg. The trial became known as the ‘Doctors’ Trail‘. Twenty of the 23 defendants were medical doctors (Viktor Brack, Rudolf Brandt, and Wolfram Sievers were Nazi officials). They were accused of having been involved in Nazi human experimentation and mass murder under the guise of euthanasia. Brandt insisted that he had never done anything wrong, had followed orders, and had been guided by the highest morals, solid medical ethics, and his determination to do the very best for the German people.
During his interrogations, he stated the sentences that fascinated me when I first read it: ” On the one hand, there are experiments that are carried out for or with someone on a voluntary basis; on the other hand, there are those that take place against the will of the person concerned. A further subdivision indicates whether they are particularly dangerous or comparatively harmless and without any potential for danger. A further distinction must be made as to whether the result of the experiment is important or whether it is merely a ridiculous game played by a scientifically educated person. These six criteria form a kind of guideline that enables one to say YES or NO from a medical point of view.”
The quote is cited in the book by Ulf Schmidt which is extremely well-researched and worth reading for anyone with an interest in the subject. In my view, it gives a unique insight into the thinking of someone who clearly was bright yet power-hungry, scrupulous and deeply immoral:
- experiments “against the will of the person concerned” always were unlawful, immoral, and unethical according to the guidelines that existed at the time;
- “particularly dangerous” experiments should have never been considered;
- research that is merely a “ridiculous game played by a scientifically educated person” is pseudoscience and not ethical.
Brandt tried to present himself as the ‘honest’, upright Nazi who did what he did because of a deep conviction and because he wanted the best. He seemed to have fooled others and possibly even himself. Several influential personalities rallied to his support. Yet, the judges at Nuremberg did neither believe his version of events nor were they inclined to pardon his behavior. Brandt was found guilty of:
- War crimes: performing medical experiments, without the subjects’ consent, on prisoners of war and civilians of occupied countries, in the course of which experiments the defendants committed murders, brutalities, cruelties, tortures, atrocities, and other inhuman acts. Also planning and performing the mass murder of prisoners of war and civilians of occupied countries, stigmatized as aged, insane, incurably ill, deformed, and so on, by gas, lethal injections, and diverse other means in nursing homes, hospitals, and asylums during the Euthanasia Program and participating in the mass murder of concentration camp inmates;
- Crimes against humanity: committing crimes also on German nationals;
- Membership in a criminal organization, the SS. The charges against him included special responsibility for, and participation in, Freezing, Malaria, LOST Gas, Sulfanilamide, Bone, Muscle and Nerve Regeneration and Bone Transplantation, Sea-Water, Epidemic Jaundice, Sterilization, and Typhus Experiments.
Brandt was executed on 2 June 1948.
The discussions around informed consent at the Nuremberg ‘doctors trial’ brought this subject into a renewed focus and eventually led to the formulation of the now famous ‘Nuremberg Code‘.
I have often blogged about informed consent. Recently, I have come across a quote about informed consent to medical research that I find remarkable in several ways. It was made by a German physician and I present you with the original and with my translation of it.
The person who correctly guesses the author of the quote will – if he/she wants – receive a free copy of one of my books delivered through the post.
Here we go:
THE ORIGINAL
Zum einen gibt es Versuche, die fuer order mit jemandem auf freiwilliger Basis durchgefuehrt werden; zum anderen solche, die gegen den Willen der betroffenen Person stattfinden. Eine weitere Unterteilung gibt an, of sie besonders gefaehrlich offer vergleichsweise unbedenklich und ohne Gefahrenpotenzial sind. Zu unterscheiden ist ausserdem, ob das Ergebnis des Versuchs wichtig ist oder ob es sich nur um eine laecherliches Spiel einer wissenschaftlich gebildeten Person handelt. Aus diesen sechs Kriterien ergibt sich eine Art Richtlinie, die es einem vom medizinischen Standpunkt aus ermoeglicht JA oder NEIN zu sagen.
MY TRANSLATION
On the one hand, there are experiments that are carried out for or with someone on a voluntary basis; on the other hand, there are those that take place against the will of the person concerned. A further subdivision indicates whether they are particularly dangerous or comparatively harmless and without any potential for danger. A further distinction must be made as to whether the result of the experiment is important or whether it is merely a ridiculous game played by a scientifically educated person. These six criteria form a kind of guideline that enables one to say YES or NO from a medical point of view.
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I don’t think you will find the author by googling the text. So, don’t bother.
The author, a German physician, is no longer alive but was very famous at one time. I will disclose his – yes it was a man – identity as soon as someone got the correct answer. If nobody does guess correctly, I will disclose it in a few days.
If you are unable to guess the author, I would still be interested in what you think of the quote and the frame of mind of the physician who said these intriguing sentences.
