BELLY

THE "TEN COMMANDMENTS"
FOR THE HEALING PATIENT

Some illnesses get better by themselves. Why cure a flu? What is the point in lowering fever? Fever is the cure that the body has chosen. It serves to kill bacteria. The body has made an effort to produce fever and you, like an idiot, go and take an aspirin?
To take drugs makes sense only if serious complications arise, or if the patient is less than 3 years old, or more than 80, or is already seriously weakened. In these cases, the flu and fever above 38°C (100.5°F) could be dangerous (and it is best to see a doctor).

Discourse on drugs
Aspirin doesn't cure the flu. It lowers the fever and helps relieve the symptoms. But if it attenuates the symptoms of the flu, how will the body understand what is wrong with it? Taking aspirin is an insult to your capacity to cure yourself.
Certainly, if one suffers intolerably, one should take painkillers. But the flu doesn't cause such terrible symptoms. Sure, you might have to go to work anyway or maybe you can't stand the idea of a minor illness... but if you take an aspirin, you are not acting sensibly. Besides, nobody knows even today why and how the heck aspirin really works. I know this seems hard to believe, but it's true. This mystery regarding the real mechanisms activated by major drugs should warn everyone to use them with much more restraint.
Drugs should be taken only if there is a risk.
Otherwise, one can be cured with non-aggressive methods. For example, a good glass of warm milk with honey and cognac, or burying oneself under the blankets in order to sweat, are remedies that help the body's effort in fighting the flu. Or you could choose the macrobiotic method: boiled whole-grain organic rice, a pinch of salt, a bit of oil and a clove or two of garlic. Refined people who love herbs could consume propolis and deodorized garlic pills. Tough guys and gals could use a clove of peeled garlic greased with olive oil as a suppository. The flu will last 3 or 4 days anyway. One cures oneself more than anything to reassure oneself and to alleviate the symptoms, but all these methods actually do very little neither more nor less than aspirin or antibiotics.

Antibiotics should be handled with kid gloves.
The flu is caused by a virus; antibiotics kill bacteria. Viruses are not bacteria. What dang good does it do to take antibiotics? Zilch. It is useful only if there is a risk of serious complications (pneumonia, etc.). That is, if the state of debility, caused by the illness, allows the growth of serious bacterial infections. By now, even international medical organizations have realized the enormous risk caused by the indiscriminate use of antibiotics. In fact, each slaughter of bacteria implies a step forward in the genetic screening of these microorganisms, which are becoming more and more immune to antibiotics. In short, in our vain attempt to avoid a few days of indisposition, we are helping to select new breeds of antibiotic-resistant bacteria equipped with built-in lasers. They will become two metres tall, eat lead and shit deadly loads. We will be their viruses, and they will massacre us with mighty hammer blows.

LET'S NOT OVERRATE
MEDICINE

OUR BODY IS STILL
THE BEST DOCTOR

There are many erroneous ideas surrounding medicine (all types of medicine). Doctors are not as good as they would have us believe. It is a widely held opinion that modern medicine was responsible for the great rise in survival and life expectancy rates. This is false.
The great reduction in mortality in Europe and North America came about before modern medicine reached the general public. It was caused not by the skill of doctors, but by the increase in the amount of food available, by the arrival of running water, by sewage drainage systems, by urban garbage collection services, by the use of disinfectants, insecticides and soap, and by the general improvement in sanitary conditions, due to greater wealth and mass education. Penicillin, the first antibiotic, was invented in 1936 and didn't reach the market until the 1940's.
Even today, we owe our increasing longevity to the quality of foods, the heating of homes, the availability of clothing, the progressive thinking in nutrition and the rising interest in physical fitness, more than we do to drugs. And obviously, I am convinced that the enormous proliferation of comedy shows and the growth of the culture of laughter have made a considerable contribution to the health of people around the world.
Today, around 50% of the shows (films and TV) and books "consumed" are humorous. Comical works top the charts. Just by looking at the level they were at in the early 1900s, we can see how far they have come.

The jokes in them make you wonder how they could have made anyone laugh! On the other hand, it should be observed that the benefits of drugs were partly thwarted by an excessive consumption of pills and injections that often caused terrible side effects.

The same can be said for hospital stays, which statistically generate a certain percentage of illnesses that are contracted right in the hospital itself.