The Fashion for Fake Treatments
The desire to take medicine is perhaps the greatest feature which distinguishes man from animals. Sir William Osler (1925). It is a most extraordinary thing, but I never read a patent medicine advertisement without being impelled to the conclusion that I am suffering from the particular disease therein dealt with in its most virulent form. […]
Continue readingCan One Control Alcohol?
Allen Carr—he of Easy Way to Stop Smoking fame—published a book in 2004 called The Easy Way to Control Alcohol. There have been later editions but since he died in 2006 if the text has been rewritten it would have been by someone else. Easy Way to Stop Smoking, in spite of its shortcomings—I describe […]
Continue readingThe Great Vitamin Drip Scam – Part II
There’s something faintly ridiculous about sitting like a lemon for forty-five minutes while expensive vitamin-laced salt water is dripped into a vein in your arm. Yet this is what will happen if you fall for the blandishments of clinics offering to boost your immune system, detoxify your body, and abolish all your unhappiness. These claims, […]
Continue readingThe Great Vitamin Drip Scam
Wouldn’t you like to strengthen your immune system, detoxify your body from the inside out (!), reduce your stress levels, and be helped to recover and rehydrate quickly after exercise? All these so-called benefits, and a lot more besides, are available—for a nice fat fee—at private clinics springing up in cities in the UK, USA, […]
Continue readingBad Language
How difficult it is to write well! Even something as simple as a parking notice requires thought and care. As for a letter to the editor of a medical journal, one should make sure one has something worth saying before sending it. In today’s post I offer examples of the pitfalls in both kinds of […]
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