Date: Mon, 5 Jan 1998 20:54:09 -0800 (PST)
From: Gene Thompson <gthompso@ccsf.cc.ca.us>
To: Pinhole Listserv <pinhole@exploratorium.edu>
Subject: some bio-med questions, kinda
In-Reply-To: <v01520d00b0d517bf4c86@[205.179.255.115]>
OK, a CT scan is basically an X-ray and delivers high doses of radiation.
But what exactly is an MRI? The doc I talked to today said it gives
little or no radiation, and they use it on pregnant women. I know it's
magnetic resonance, but magnetism is part and parcel with electricity, and
magnetic fields produce electric currents. So what kind of electricity is
produced by an MRI? How strong is it?
I was talking to a doctor because I had been sick recently. The illness
-- Bell's palsy -- isn't really treatable by western medicine, but is
highly treatable by traditional Chinese medicine. I got rid of it in
about 1 and 1/2 weeks using accupuncture and herbs (yuck!) When I
mentioned this to the doctor, he said, "Or maybe it just went away by
itself. You'd have to do a big study with half the patients getting
Chinese medicine and half no medicine at all to determine that." Which
brings up my second question. Western medicine developed around the
double blind test as the only way to ensure that a particular procedure or
medicine works. Chinese medicine developed around different ideas and
different views of how the body works. In traditional Chinese
medicine, they know how to treat Bell's palsy -- they have no doubts
about what to do, and the standard of treatment is quite ancient. The
western doctor can point to a patient saved by a particular operation or
drug and say, "See, that proves my way works," but the Chinese doctor can
do the same. If both methods produce results and both methods
self-evaluate differently, does that mean that medicine is really just a
best approximation to reality as developed from a particular cultural
viewpoint?
Which leads me to may last question. If we have such a hard time seeing
past our own cultural educations to the values and possibilities of
sciences developed by other cultures of our own species, on our own
planet, how will we be able to even begin to understand the creations of
other species, or of intelligences from other planets?
Ellen Koivisto
gthompso@ccsf.cc.ca.us
George Washington High School
SF, CA