Yes, I understand that controlled tests have demonstrated the efficacy of certain treatments for certain conditions, but -- as you note -- in many cases the doctor does not even run the tests necessary to determine the specific condition prior to recommending a particular treatment. So, again, I inquire, for the average medical doctor, what percentage of the treatments that s/he prescribes would you estimate to be clearly efficacious?
Thank you, again, for showing your dismal lack of understanding of medical practice, or how the situation you described (treatment for a stomach bug) differs from the situation of positing a "cure" for a condition.
Can you not undertsnad the difference between symptomatic treatment, aka pallative care, and a cure? In these types of cases, it doesn't MATTER what specific condition they have. The doctor is providing something that works direclty on the mechanisms that cause a cough, or that cause nausea, or that cause congestion, without worrying about the specific, underlying cause, because it doesn't matter. He proscribes threatments that have been shown, through rigorous testing, to lessen the impact of fever, aches and pains, coughs, and similar symptoms. You're trying to compare recovery times to a lessening of symptoms. It's apples and oranges, and just goes even more towards showing how little you understand about medicine, modern or not.
And to answer the question, the symptomatic treatments do work (most of them, anyway). I'd say Tylenol, for example, is extremely effecious in treating fevers and aches and pains. Does it lessen recovery times of the underlying conditoion? No, it doesn't, but (important part here, pay attention)
that isn't the point. The point is to lessen discomfort and allow a higher level of functioning, at which it is extremely good.
I'd say medical effectiveness is at least 90%, if you mean causing some improvement. The amount of improvement does vary based on numerous factors, and sometimes is slight. And some cases don't respond to such syptomatic treatments, because the underlying condition worsens (which is why there's always those admoniutions to come back oif the fever gets above such and such, or if the cough doesn't go away after so long).
In any case, I can GARAUNTEE that the effectiveness of modern medicine is much, MUCH higher than that of any alternative medicine you'd care to put in up against.
I will grant you that it would have made sense in the Tommy House case for Tommy's father to have done a follow-up reading asking what Tommy's condition was and why the belladonna was efficacious. However, that may well have happened and we don't have a record of it because, prior to 1923, only a relative handful of Cayce's readings were preserved. Perhaps Dr. House was told in such a reading that his son's condition was a rare one, and that use of belladonna on another infant in a seemingly similar condition would not be generally recommended. We do know that Dr. House eventually gave up his medical practice to work with Cayce, which wouldn't seem to have made sense if House thought that Cayce had simply gotten lucky with his son.
