Why quacks prosper. Why quacks rule.

 

What is quackery? When a person does not understand the natural laws of health and healing, is not interested to genuinely help the patient heal, has an eye for money and business to benefit out of sickness, and his efforts lead to complications and ill health, that person is a quack, and the system that promotes it is quackery.

Why do quacks prosper? The quack promises instant relief and the easy way out. He promises cures without any effort on the part of the patient. He poses to be an expert on the subject and prevails upon the patient to consume medications that he prescribes and earns from.

People want instant solutions. They want instant escape from pain and discomfort. They want to get back into active life as soon as possible. They want to pop pills and get it over with. The quack is a master of studying and taking advantage of such patient behaviour and knows how to exploit the situation to the hilt. He makes the patient docile and fully dependent on him.

It is this mentality that Gandhi fought. He exhorted people to get out of this lethargy and take charge of their health. He emphasized on nutrition, fasting, prayers, self discipline and giving up habits that cause disease. He said diseases come to teach us the value of good mentality and lifestyle.

He was not alone. Alarmed by the rise of chronic debilitating diseases and disabilities worldwide, intellectuals expressed their dissatisfaction and pointed out that ignoring vital factors like nutrition, sanitation, hygiene, better living conditions, safe livelihoods and salaries, mental hygiene and depending exclusively on medications, vaccines, and surgery was what was behind the epidemics of chronic diseases.

They were right but the system retaliated by dubbing them quacks, and the public believed that these intellectuals did not understand science. They were taken up by the extremely serious disease conditions that emerged and genuinely believed that more of the same thing that caused them was the solution.

Unfortunately this mentality continues even today. People readily part with their money and line up to be irreversibly harmed, allured and mesmerized by the false promises that are thrown at them through expert speak and media blitzkrieg.

Unless a lot of money is spent, time spent in 5 star hospitals consulting people with a long list of degrees who prescribe long lists of tests, medications, and surgeries, people think they are not giving justice to the illness they harbor because they do not apply their innate sense and knowledge.

When people were endowed with such knowledge they fled when vaccination teams reached their villages, and they fought bitterly, singly and in crowds the forcible gun point administration.

The archives of the Indian Journal of Medical Ethics details in an article the fights that erupted as the simple people fought tooth and nail to prevent the needle from entering their bodies they considered sacred. The doctor author rues that through such "public health measures" medicine abandoned all sense of ethics and respect for informed consent.

A healthy person knows he is healthy. He does not feel the burden of the body. He feels happy and full of energy. The identity of health instinctively abhors anything that threatens the status quo. Globally the people who were up in arms against vaccination were conscious of the body's inherent instinct to stay away from harm.

Once a person can be rendered sick he then becomes dependant on the doctor and seeks instant solutions as sickness is not his natural identity. He seeks relief from the existing illness so he can be well enough to take charge of his health. Unknowingly he enters into the loop of never ending illness when he depends on quacks.

The fear factor is the ultimate weapon of the quacks. They convince the people that whatever is happening must be stopped immediately otherwise death will be the result.

And so they demonized the cold, cough, fever, vomiting, and diarrhea that people once knew was the body's reaction to wrong diet and abuse. They allowed the body to rectify itself and took care not to repeat their mistakes. Simple home remedies facilitated the process. The people gained from the detoxification and rectification.

Today the media is full of news that a bevy of deadly diseases are set to strike and that many diseases are spreading and taking lives. The system delights in disease without fear and without explaining why despite trillions being spent on healthcare it is diseases that explode and rule.

Curious are the ways of the civilization that we have built. We delight in the harm imposed and exhort people to accept more harm because we feel science is something that emanates from the mouths of experts that we should submit to without questions.

Long live quacks. Long live quackery.