Science is Hard

Yes it is. Or it certainly can be. Back in Flexner's time and right through mid-Century, obviously, even though we didn't have any high quality randomized trials going on, doctors were doing stuff. Some of it was probably helpful much of the time. For example, they knew to amputate severely injured limbs, especially if there were signs of putrescence. If there's an accessible tumor, cutting it out can be helpful. It it isn't malignant, it's curative. Digitalis was used for heart disease since the 18th Century, and it is indeed helpful. There were other so-called empirical remedies back then as well, by which we mean remedies that appear to work but we don't know why.Digitalis has survived as a useful treatment, but a lot of what doctors have done routinely for many years has not. In the 1946 National Formulary of the American Pharmaceutical Association, pills containing mercurous chloride were listed as treatment for "biliousness," a condition thought to be caused by insufficient flow of bile and characterized by constipation, headache, and general malaise. Mercury was thought to stimulate the liver; it did definitely counteract constipation, to put it mildly. Of course it is actually poisonous and long-term use of this compound was deleterious indeed.So why did doctors believe in ineffective or even dangerous remedies? (It wasn't long before this time that they had given up bloodletting.) There are a few reasons.The most basic is that most conditions that cause discomfort or...
Source: Stayin' Alive - Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Source Type: blogs