HEART AND MIND: HORMONES
In Heart Disease Prevention and Cure, James C. Thomson gave it as his opinion that the then comparatively novel techniques of glandular therapy represented 'a distinct advance, on the part of a sect of medical practitioners, toward a better understanding of health'. At that time, hormones were mainly administered in an attempt to make good deficiencies in the patient's own metabolism, and this could be seen as trying to treat some disease conditions in a rational way— a recognition that illness could be due to deficiencies and derangements rather than to invasions by microbes. However, J.C.T. explained that it was only a crude approximation to the naturopath's aim of working for 'normal balance in the gland structures by manipulative, dietetic, hydropathic and other applications ... a vastly different matter from treating glandular deficiency by the injection of approximately similar animal extracts'.
Could he have foreseen the fantastic misuse of those powerful agents, and their correspondingly terrifying 'side effects', as in the administration of steroids, he would certainly have expressed a far more guarded and specific assessment of hormone therapy.
Oliver Wendell Holmes deplored the fact that there was nothing on the face of the earth or the depths of the sea too filthy to be used as medicine. To that we could add that no cruelty, inhumanity or destructiveness is too great to prevent the production and use of financially-successful hormones. The National Health Service was a gift to the pharmacy houses. Until then, the cost of production prohibited the use of antibiotics and hormones except for a very few cases. At a stroke, this barrier was swept aside; anyone could demand the newest product, regardless of its biological or monetary cost. In time, this may lead to a saner appraisal of medication. The attitude still persists that it only needs enough money to buy a cure for anything; but even a dope-soaked populace must begin to perceive — perhaps only dimly — the fallacy of this belief. So long as the magic was unattainable, its power could be believed in; now that everyone can have it the dismal truth must become evident.
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Cardio & Blood |
