Page 5 - Diagnosis_Reaver

ious thing to a medical doctor because
he uses his diagnosis as a basis for treat­
ment. It is the first thing that he must do for
his patient. He must decide what organ or
organs are functioning too little or too
much, consider all the symptoms and sum
it all up into a name.

D iagnosis deals with effects. The
diagnostician ignores the cause of disease;
he is content with giving a name to its
effects. The physician considers your
symptoms (effects of a cause), your aches
and pains (effects), your various bodily
manifestations (effects), gives them a
name or names, and prescribes drugs ac­
cording to the names he has given your
troubles.

With the entire practice of medicine
depending on diagnosis you would think it
should be 100 per cent reliable. It is not!
Even according to medical thinking,
diagnosis is grossly unreliable. Everyone is
familiar with the famous report by Dr.
Richard Cabot, the most eminent diagnosti­
cian of his time; a man of exceptionally
high integrity, in which he states that 50 per
cent of his diagnoses were wrong in 1000
cases as proved by post mortem ex­
aminations at the Massachusetts General
Hospital. This report was made in 1912. In
1937 a similar report was made. The follow­
ing article from the August, 1938, issue of
Science Sidelights, deals with this report:

“ We hear a great deal of the remarkable
medical progress during the past 25 years.
That important aspects of this might be