Witches' brew

Call me oldfashioned, but if I have a chest infection I want an antibiotic. I don't want a herbal infusion; I don't want needles stuck into my acupressure points; I don't want someone prodding my feet; and I don't want to dance naked at dawn waving healing crystals about (at least not while I'm sober). There does seem to be, however, a growing interest in alternative medicine. And I blame my mother for starting it.

If I go round to my mum's house and so much as hint at a minor ailment, then out comes the Absolute Beginner's Guide to Alternative Therapies. I do listen to the cures on offer (and some of them even sound quite pleasant) but I'm sorry, I draw the line at rubbing a potato on a verruca and burying it in the garden. “Scoff, you may,” scolded my mother. And scoff I did . . . until recently. A friend of mine had a wart on her finger and it was rather hideous, as I sympathetically remarked. She complained that none of the usual treatments had any effect so I suggested she go to her GP. Unfortunately, she ran into my mother first. Next time I saw her, she waved her wart­free finger at me smugly. “Who needs modern medicine?” she cried.

Apparently, the ABGAT advised her to spit on the wart each morning. It had to be first spit of the day—that yucky, thick, phlegmy stuff that most people would not even swallow, let alone apply to a body part. Reluctant as I am to admit it, the evidence was overwhelming —she was definitely deficient in the wart department.

Anyway, word got around and my mum is now doing a roaring trade at her local “Bums and Tums” class, dispensing her healing wisdom (and some eye of newt, for all I know). I keep trying to tell her, it wasn't too long ago that she would have been burnt at the stake for this behaviour. Then again, perhaps I'm just worried that she'll put me out of my job before I'm even in it.

Sally Morrison­Griffiths, third year medical student, University of Liverpool
Email: salimg@liv.ac.uk


studentBMJ 2001;09:357-398 October ISSN 0966-6494