01) CHAPTER ONE

Mar 10, 2024 02:31 PM

page 27: Chapter one: Anatomy of an illness as perceived by the patient.

Page 28: “sed rate”l

From: Chapter One of Anatomy of an Illness as perceived by the patient:

“In August 1964, I flew home from a trip abroad with a slight fever. The malaise, which took the form of a general feeling of achiness, rapidly deepened. Within a week it became difficult to move my neck, arms, hands, fingers, and legs. My sedimentation rate was over 80. Of all the diagnostice tests, the "sed" rate is one of the most useful to the physician.  The way it works is beautifully simply.  The speed with which red blood cells settle in a test tube--measured in millimeters per hour-is generally proportionate to the severity of an inflammation or infection.  A normal illness, such as grippe, might produce a sedimentation reading of, say, 30 or even 40.  When the rate goes well beyond 60 or 70, however, the physician knows that he is dealing with more than a casual health problem.  I was hospitalized when the sed rate hit 88.  Within a week it was up to 115, generally considered to be a sign of a critical condition."

"There were other tests, some of which seemed to me to be more an assertion of the clinical capability of the hospital than of concern for the well-being of the patient.  I was astounded when four technicians from four different departments took four separate and substantial blood samples on the same day.  That the hospital didn't take the trouble to coordinate the tests, using one blood specimen, seemed to me inexplicable and irresponsible.  Taking four large slugs of blood the same day even from a healthy person is hardly to be recommended.  When the technicians came the second day to fill their containers with blood for processing in separate laboratories.  I turned them away and had a sign posted on my door saying that I would give just one specimen every three days and that I expected the different departments to draw from one vial for their individual needs."

see the rest of page 29.

page 32: “adrenal dysfuntion”

"As I thought back on that Moscow experience, I wondered whether the exposure to the hydrocarbons from the diesel exhaust a the hotel and at the airport had anything to do with the underlying cause of the illness.  If so, that might account for the speculations of the doctors concerning heavy-metal poisoning.  The trouble with this theory, however, was that my wife, who had been with me on the trip, had o ill effects from the same exposure.  How likely was it that only one of us would have reacted adversely?"

"It seemed to me, as I thought about it, that there were two possible explanations for the different reactions.  One had to do with individual allergy.  The second was that I could have been in a condition of adrenal exhaustion and less apt to tollerate a toxic experience than someone whose immunologic system was fully functional."

page 34: " Assuming this hypothesis was true, I had to get my adrenal glands functioning properly gain and to restore what Walter B. Cannon, in his famous book, “The Wisdom of the Body", called HOMEOSTASIS.

page 37: “Pain is past of the body’s magic”

page 41: “Vitamin C and the Wisdom of the BODY

page 44: “art of healing is a frontier profession”

page 47: endocrynologist...creativity...vital brain impulses..pituitary

page 2

page 48: “Something else I have learned.; I have learned never to underestimate the capacity of the human mind and body” to regenerate-even when the prospects seem most wretched. The life-force may be the least understood Force on earth. Wm James said that human beings tend to live too far within self-imposed limits. It is possible that these limits will recede when we respect m;or;e fully the natural drive of the human mind and body toward perfectability and regeneration. ; Protecting and cherishing that natural drive may well represent the finest exercise of human FREEDOM.”

01) CHAPTER ONE

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