> Medicine is not a science, at far is an art or a discipline.
>

It is both.  Where Doctors err is in the dismissal of all "alternative",
which means "not invented here", medicine. Chinese medicine is full of these
kinds of treatments, many of which are entering western medicine because
they work. I personally feel that bee sting therapy knocked out my arthritis
in my shoulders and kept my melanoma from spreading. Both of these have
underling science, but I still consider them anecdotal.

Less anecdotal was when I had my hands operated on. It took a bit to get my
surgeon to agree to allow me to use honey for the wound treatment. He is now
a believer as it healed faster and I had more movement than most all his
patients. And this was after a two week period after the operation where he
would not allow the honey but gave up and allowed me to treat myself since
it was not healing well up till then with antibiotics. I did have to come in
more often since he wanted to closely monitor my progress. Toward the end,
my hand was his poster child and he showed it off to all the Doctors. He
wrote a paper on "his" treatment with honey.

The Chinese use honey extensively for wound and burn treatment. Even the New
Zealanders have come around :)

MS is an interesting problem as there are several sting therapy
practitioners. Supposedly there was to be a trial to see if it works, but I
have not seen anything about it or if it was even done. I have been asked to
sting people with MS, but refuse. I did give one bees for a while, but
decided against even that. I will not use my bees to sting anyone except my
immediate family.

It has been noted that MS is a northern disease and probably has more to do
with lack of sunshine (vitamine D), than anything else theorized to date.
Several cancers follow the northern latitude trend. A lack of vitamin D in
the bloodstream is a good indicator of how bad the cancer will be. Another
alt medicine treatment rejected by the med establishment, but now becoming
mainstream.

The bad side of this is when the alt medicine crowd behaves just like their
enemies from the med establishment. Just go on line and check all the
testimonials from the quack medicine practitioners as well as their attacks
on the main-liners whose treatments "never worked" but their medical miracle
(only 25.99 for a weeks supply) does. They prove it works because every one
has a survivor who testifies to the efficacy of the treatment and they would
not be alive today without it.

They uphold my "Law of the Survivor": Only the living can testify.

An opposite is the old Boston Irish Politician's creed- "Always quote the
dead." In this case, not a good practice.

Bill Truesdell
Bath, Maine

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