Suppressed Inventions and Other Discoveries Read Free Page B

gives me a headache."
Professor Cesare Cremonini in 1610,
explaining why he would not look through Galileo's telescope at the moons of Jupiter.
    ARROGANT IGNORANCE
    The sort of excuse above has delayed medical discoveries for decades, even half-centuries. Canadian nutritionist Dr. David Rowland describes this repression of medical innovation as a bad attitude which he termed "arrogant ignorance." This negative attitude toward many great discoveries represents a tremendous ego threat. Today such negativity is compounded with the industrialization of medicine, which has brought on that "greed is good (for me)" philosophy expressed in the recent movie Wall Street. Segments of the medical profession take what they want when they can get it.
    Arrogant ignorance has followed science and medicine throughout history. Beginning with the learned colleagues of Galileo who refused to even look through the glass of his new invention, the telescope, because they believed they already knew all about the laws of physics, that notinvented-here attitude is alive and well at the dawn of the twenty-first century. Is it only a coincidence that "not invented here" shares initials with our government's National Institutes of Health?
    Past suppressions—at least those safely back in past centuries—are readily admitted by contemporary medicine. French explorer Jacques Cartier, for example, in 1535 learned from the American Indians that pine-needle tea prevented and cured scurvy, a vitamin C deficiency disease. Upon his return to France, Cartier excitedly shared his discovery with French doctors, who turned a cold shoulder—such a primitive therapy was witchcraft. If we pass this off as Eurocentrism, we miss the similarities to present-day rejections of alternative healing methods that are getting the cold shoulder. The case of Dr. Charles Peres, M.D., of Ft. Meyers, Florida, provides an excellent example.
    Dr. Peres was diagnosed with a stage D2 prostate cancer spread throughout his body. In lay terms, you can't have a gloomier prognosis. After he adopted a natural regimen based on a low-fat vegetarian macrobiotic diet, his cancer went into complete remission. Naturally overjoyed, upon his return to functional living he noticed that many of his medical colleagues actually appeared angry that he had survived. Would they rather he die than heal himself with this unorthodox treatment? This very same disdain has been noted by cancer patients who have sought out alternative cancer doctors and have gone into permanent remission, only to be told by their first doctor that they never had cancer to begin with (despite the complete diagnostic work-up that he had witnessed). Negative reactions range from obvious anger to feigned indifference. It must also be told that there are doctors who secretly recommend alternative treatments but warn their patients to never tell the wrong party lest the doctor get in trouble.
    In 1747, James Lind, a surgeon's mate in the British Navy, conducted dietary experiments on board ship. He concluded that citrus fruits prevented and cured the killer disease scurvy which ravaged sailors. Captain Cook was one of the first ship commanders to supplement his sailors with rations of lime. The captain sailed throughout the world for over three years without a single death from scurvy—unprecedented for that time.
    But it took forty-eight years before the British Admiralty made it official policy to distribute one ounce of lime juice daily for each sailor. This simple nutritional supplement of vitamin C was a factor in Britain's ascent to being the world's greatest sea power. It was as though they doubled their forces. Britain sailed farther than any other navy into uncharted territory, easily defeating weakened enemies who had lost many sailors to scurvy.
    Now, neither the British nor the American Indian performed any double-blind, cross-over studies to arrive at their discovery. In their respective ways, they learned that it worked