An Intelligent Person's Guide to Medicine

by Theodore Dalrymple

Health is on of those subjects that seems easy to define and then, the closer one gets, is more and more difficult to understand. Does the health of a schizophrenic really improve by being sedated and kept in an asylum? Is a course of Prozac or psychotherapy aimed to make someone happy really a medicine? These incompatible views are most visible in the NHS which has over the decades become the focus of all these projections of health. At the expense of the taxpayer many are being "cured" while there is no money for some of those who have physical ailments in a real sense. In this book, Theodore Dalrymple sets out to tear into the myths that he believes our politicians have created, with anecdotes from his own experience as a doctor.

Genres: Medicine

160 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Anthony Malcolm Daniels, who generally uses the pen name Theodore Dalrymple, is an English writer and retired prison doctor and psychiatrist. He worked in a number of Sub-Saharan African countries as well as in the east end of London. Before his retirement in 2005, he worked in City Hospital, Birmingham and Winson Green Prison in inner-city Birmingham, England.

Daniels is a contributing editor to City Journal, published by the Manhattan Institute, where he is the Dietrich Weismann Fellow. In addition to City Journal, his work has appeared in The British Medical Journal, The Times, The Observer, The Daily Telegraph, The Spectator, The Salisbury Review, National Review, and Axess magasin.

In 2011, Dalrymple received the 2011 Freedom Prize from the Flemish think tank Libera!.

Reviews

[Anton Mohorčič · Rating 1 out of 5]

The book is not what it claims to be based on the title – it’s no guide! It’s full of Mr. Dalrymple’s (Anthony Daniels) pontificating, full of contradictions and even outright falsehoods!
It’s obvious that Theodore Dalrymple has a strange attitude toward healthy eating and health in general.

I’ll just quote a few gems. On page 19 he says:
"Besides, the assumption that ill health is the consequence of bad diet is a very doubtful one, though ancient in its provenance. The Hippocratic corpus contains a book on regimen; and both dietary moderation and a simple life have long been An Intelligent Person’s Guide to Medicine advocated as the key to longevity, if not to immortality. Nutrition (with a few exceptions) has been to medicine what astrology was to astronomy, or alchemy to chemistry."

Really? Bad diet has no impact on health? And nutrition science is some sort of superstition – like astrology and alchemy?

Then – a few pages later – we read the following, where his patient literally kills himself with poor diet, alcohol, and smoking – and Dalrymple calls this ‘courage’! Hello!? How did the patient ruin his life with poor food, if food supposedly has no effect on health?

I quote:
"I once had a patient in a far-off land, a man of generous proportions, who consulted me about some swelling of his ankles. In the course of the consultation, he told me that he was diabetic.
I suspected that he was a bon viveur.
‘You don’t smoke, I suppose?’ I asked, tentatively.
‘Like a chimney,’ he replied.
‘Or drink?’
‘Like a fish.’
By then, I had caught his drift.
‘Of course, you love rich food?’
‘I cook everything in cream and butter.’
I swiftly skated over the dangers of his mode of life. I told him nothing he did not already know. Nor did he deny that what I said was true. He simply said that he had considered the alternatives, and had decided to live as if his diabetes did not exist, except is so far as it was possible to keep his blood sugar level within normal limits by the use of medicine. There was a magnificence to his performance which I could not but admire, and we became fast friends. He had decided that the best was not necessarily the longest life, and — unlike so many — he had the courage of his convictions. He did indeed die earlier than he might have done, but I could not regard the loss of longevity as a waste of possible life.
Few have his courage: resistance to the medical view of existence is generally less conscious, or less honest. But still it does my heart good (I am talking of my metaphorical heart, of course) to see people en masse doing what the doctors say is bad for them."

[Clay · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book to be rather informative. I wish it had a larger circulation.

[Colby · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such clear, cogent and persuasive thinking is dangerous

[Ed Lang · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is good reason why the cheapest used copy is 123.00 at Amazon! I bought it a few years ago at 16 bucks I think. Great read. Great investment!