Although Semmelweis did not ‘accurately’ describe ‘why’; what he did, worked, he had discovered something that stopped puerperal fever. Although he did not know exactly what it was that chlorinated lime did (the chlorine killed bacteria and germs), he found it prevented the infection of puerperal fever from being transmitted and nearly eliminated that disease as a cause of mortality among birthing mothers.

Today, we tell the story of Pasteur, Koch, and the germ theory of disease.’ Still, in effect, in actuality, and in the time, culture, and language of the 19th century, Semmelweis and his theory of 'cadaverous poisoning' and his treatment of chlorinated lime were absolutely and effectively correct and effective. If his discovery had been accepted as possible, if it had been merely tested and followed, then hundreds of thousands of women's and children's lives could have been saved over the three decades it took to be finally accepted. The suffering alleviated would be the equivalent of avoiding a whole war. It was easy to do.

It was the right thing to do. It was obvious, but it was not done.

It stands as a terrible shame and crime against humanity.

This ‘phenomenon, although mostly forgotten by our modern-day Western culture, remains with us today in a phrase called the ‘Semmelweis Effect.’ It refers to the tendency of so-called experts in a particular field to reject new evidence that contradicts their established paradigm. It does not matter if the old way of doing things is false and the new evidence is accurate and has been proven. The reasons for dismissal go beyond money, a factor that is heavily involved with the modern-day version of this story regarding cancer and Doctor Stanislaus Burzynski.

Stanislaus Burzynski and Cancer

One might say regarding Semmelweis, 'That was 200 years ago. Now, we are much more sophisticated and educated." Well, the same thing is happening in America today, with the most effective cure for cancer ever discovered (in the 1970's) by Stanislaus Burzynski. But this represents an even more insidious case, for there are vast sums of money involved, approximately a trillion dollars a year . . . I am referring to Cancer and the search for a cure for cancer which are serious business.

(Please view the documentary: Cancer: A serious Business, by Eric Merola).

https://www.amazon.com/Burzynski-Movie-Cancer-Serious-Business/dp/B004LKDIX6

Dr. Burzynski discovered the most effective (according to FDA testing) treatment ever discovered for many cancers and without any negative side effects at all. Why have we never heard of him? It is the same 'reason' that no one ever heard of Semmelweis and his chlorinated lime treatments for women in childbirth.

Much has changed between now and then . . . in addition to the resistance of the medical profession (and they dramatically opposed Burzynski like they did Semmelweis), Burzynski also had to deal with the Pharmaceutical Industry. Think of it  . . . in the time of Semmelweis, there was no money to be gained or lost in whether someone washed their hands or not. But, if chemotherapy and radiation are shown to be unnecessary, (they already have shown themselves to be harmful and ineffective in the long run. According to an audit on Radiation therapy by the NCBI-National Center for Biotechnology Information: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9125063, the overall 5-year survival rate was 27%.), a trillion dollars of income a year could disappear, and literally destroy the vast businesses that produce and carry out these treatments. Indeed, even the National Cancer Institute has been trying to block what Burzynski is doing! Apparently, there is much more money in searching for a cure for cancer than in having one in hand. It is the modern expression of what is a very ancient prejudice. It is a highly primitive and often pre-conscious form of denial and arrogance with us today. It is outrageous, and it is precisely what happened to Semmelweis; it is called the 'Semmelweis principle.'

This is why I say that Ben Bernanke, like the European doctors of Semmelweis's time, the Modern-day medical profession, the National Cancer Institute, or Economic specialists, may be exactly the wrong people to ask about the Great Depression. 

Bernanke may be closed off to the one thing or type that actually works. Even if it has worked in other places around the earth, he may not pay it any attention. Even if what he is proposing has been shown not to work, he closes his eyes to its failure.  If not what he has studied, learned, done, or practiced all his life, he may refuse to even entertain the idea.  It is not that he is dumb or stupid. Remember the great doctors of Vienna? He is just blind to consideration on the subject, just like the king with his gardener, just like the man who is blind to the gaze of the dove and just like the cancer doctors concerning Burzynski.

Ask one of the families whose wife or Mother died during the time of Semmelweis when their doctor refused to wash his hands if being an ‘expert’ in the field was 'enough'. Of course, they will say, 'No!'

"The inertia of the human mind and its resistance to innovation are most clearly demonstrated, not, as one might expect, by the ignorant mass- which is easily swayed once its imagination is caught- but by professionals with a vested interest in tradition and in the monopoly of learning. Innovation is a twofold threat to academic mediocrities: it endangers their oracular authority, and it evokes the deeper fear that their whole, laboriously constructed intellectual edifice might collapse. The academic backwoodsmen have been the curse of genius from Aristarchus to Darwin and Freud; they stretch, a solid and hostile phalanx of pedantic mediocrities,

across the centuries."

– Arthur Koestler, 'The Nightwalkers"

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Repression of Astrology, Oracles, Omens and the Gods

Although the Semmelweis effect occurred in science and medicine, we did not eliminate all medical practice. People wrongly interpreted numbers, but we accepted mathematics. However, in the West, we repressed the ancient sciences involving omens and astrology. These ancient sciences represented a worldview and spoke in a language that is little used today. ‘Modern science' speaks in the rational language of scientific causation. Omens and signs talk in metaphors and poetry, the flight of birds and lines on hands, the rising of a star or planet at the time of birth, and the eclipses of the moon or sun. They use the stories of myths as nouns and adjectives, noting correlations, and causations; and their images, like any and all things, data and information, need to be interpreted! All the ancient techniques (Jyotish, medicine, architecture, religions, etc.) are rooted in far more than data alone. They offer bridges to morality,  to taste, and the ethical realm of ‘good and bad’. They are full of value judgments and are paradoxically cognizant of the great mystery inherent in life. 

In my first seven years as an Ayurvedic consultant, I looked at a Vedic Astrological chart for nearly every one of the patients that came to me, and nearly every single time, their chart was amazingly insightful. It gave broader context to the consideration of physical symptoms and my client's state of health. Astrology (Jyotish) gave information on the general prognosis, timing, and the nature of events discussed and informed the general direction of the consultation. The astrology ‘chart’ looked out over the horizon of time and space, beyond what could be told by observing the body, function, and pulse in the person in front of me. 

There were undoubtedly times when using Jyotish that I found no great insight into the matter. But that was by far the exception. Taken as a whole, the astrological chart demonstrated forces that lay outside a person’s conscious choice, control, or responsibility in this life. Imagine a person suffering from head and body aches for several years and then finding out that a high-frequency cell phone transmission tower had been put up near their house just around the time they began to suffer from these very symptoms. That would be a very important thing to know and would lend itself to cause-and-effect interpretation. Just so, there are definable, observable causes to things that Jyotish can clarify.

Hippocrates, the Father of Western Medicine, and the person from whom all Western medical doctors take (or used to take) the ‘Hippocratic Oath’ said, “No one should call himself a doctor unless he or she was also an astrologer”. Hippocrates knew that no complete diagnosis could be made without the help of astrological information on the patient. Hippocrates declared that astrology would help, "Declare the past, diagnose the present and foretell the future”. He went on to encourage doctors to “Practice these arts.

And as to diseases, make a habit of two things — to help, or at least to do no harm."

– Hippocrates in 'Epidemics'. 

To ‘declare the past’ was of great value because the type of medicine Hippocrates practiced was based on 'removing the cause', and for that, it was necessary to clearly understand the etiology or cause of things, which often lay in an unremembered and unrecognized past. Looking into past causes with an astrology chart would allow a doctor to consider additional factors that play a role in present symptoms.

The importance Hippocrates gave to ‘foretelling the future’ was similar to getting a weather forecast; if you are a sailor out at sea . . . it is necessary and essential to 'foretell the future' so that one can plan and arrange your life and course if you see a storm brewing or a map that marks out shoals or the many possible fates that the future of a sailor may bring. The science of astrology that Hippocrates practiced was not fatalistic. It recognized fate and free will: A farmer can plant seeds, but those seeds will never grow unless it rains. To use free will intelligently, it is critical to see what the weather is going to be and what the road looks like ahead, and for that, one needs to look out over the horizon. The purpose of astrology was to throw light on life, to illuminate a corner of the vast room of possibilities, to determine the Ides of March or the solstice or the equinox or an eclipse of the sun or moon.

Although modern Westerners do not recognize it, both astrology and Western medicine are based on omens and the interpretation of omens. A blood test and an EKG show signs that must then be interpreted. This is not different from the arrangement, aspects, and analysis of an astrological chart. In all these cases, different interpretations are usually possible and made. While an infinite number of interpretations are possible, not all interpretations are correct.

Full of scientific pride like the doctors of Vienna and Western Europe, we have fallen far from 'right interpretation' in Western medicine today. We neither study astrology nor do our medical professionals adhere to the Hippocratic doctrine of ‘First do no harm.’ In fact, according to findings published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, iatrogenic disease, or ‘treatment by a doctor,' is the third leading cause of death in America today (after heart disease and cancer)! Not only do we not 'declare the past,' as Hippocrates instructs, but we also are not much concerned with 'cause;' I am constantly surprised at how Western doctors in their analysis of disease, are quick to mask or remove symptoms (through pharmaceutical drugs and/or surgery)  but rarely determine or remove the causative factors of such disease which are primarily (not exclusively) food, digestion, and lifestyle in every case in the widely varying number of the diseases that I see amongst westerners.

Western Medicine is a relatively new and distinct medical practice that seeks to alleviate symptoms. The method of thinking in Western Medicine today often treats symptoms as if they were the cause and that if we eliminate or remove the symptoms, we effectively treat the disease. This is like driving down the road in a car, and the oil light goes on. A Western medical doctor reaches underneath the seat, grabs a hammer and screwdriver, and removes or smashes the oil light......... . . problem fixed, health restored.

Ayurveda (and Hippocratic medicine) says we must do something about the oil and tell us how to do so.

We have seen how the problems of interpretation are not limited to the ancient practices that we call ‘superstitions' today, such as astrology and omens. Instead, the necessity and problem of interpretation are universal phenomena that have never left us and remain alive and well. Interpretation lies beneath the surface of the ancient and modern-day sciences. For that matter, interpretation is a fundamental practice and an always pertinent necessity to every aspect of life.

Now, let's travel back even further into ancient times and consider the true story of a man who attempted to go further than anyone else in determining the veracity of the oracles of his day (there were several well-known oracles in his world) in an attempt to eliminate all doubt from his use of an oracle.

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King Croesus