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Prosperity has made many people soft, weak and lazy. This is not only true for Americans. You can see it all over the world. How lucky we are! How rich we are! Just like Lou Gehrig! More so in many ways! But, how much is enough? How rich do we need to be? Lou Gehrig was an exceptional man, viewed from many angles. He surely lived a full life despite his “tragic” ending. He might teach us a whole lot about true values and true riches. Westerners have become in many ways richer than Midas. But that wealth has caused a host of problems of which we are far too often oblivious. “There are two sides to every coin,” as Kiyosaki repeatedly reminds us. We must reiterate that, “Most all of us are royally rich these days.”And then if we allow material wealth to divert us from true treasure, we become subject to the ills and ails of royalty. Grasping for more man-made luxuries and comforts are sure to lead to ills similar to those suffered by nobles, princes and kings in past eras.  We are reminded of gout, the “patrician malady.” Gout, in the distant past, was called the “disease of kings” or “king of diseases,” because it was historically associated with European royalty. Yet, descriptions of gout date back to the Babylonian Empire in the 5th century B.C. Monarchs and other notables were often depicted with gouty, arthritic attacks of the joints. King Henry VIII is famously known to have suffered from gout. Gout was recognized as “the monarch of maladies,” a disease of the rich. Over a millennium ago, the Persian physician Rhazes told that gout “did not attack those who work, only those who do not have to work.” Its link to excess was clear even then. Gout was a disease of civilization and the fruit of luxury. It was attributed to ease and indulgent habits, voluptuousness and high living, too much use of wine and other spirits.“Vice and Immorality gained Ground, as Luxury and Laziness prevailed, and Men became Slaves to their own Appetites, new Affections grew up in their depraved Natures, new Diseases, and till then unheard of Distempers, both chronick and acute, assaulted their vitiated Blood.” (Cadogan) The Nemesis “overtakes those addicted to luxurious habits and dietary excesses.” Put differently, “they who have been well born, pay for it.” (Smollett) Simply stated, gout was the symptom and symbol of all chronic disease which result from intemperate habits. Likewise, simple ways of the poor protected them from gout. Gout rarely appeared among the rugged and ragged. Our chronic diseases were and are of our own creation. (Beddoes) [quotations from Gout: The Patrician Malady by Roy Porter] Today, the prevalence of gout varies by country, but it's estimated to affect up to 4% of the global population with the incidence highest in the United States at over 9 million people as of 2021. Gout is more common in men and older people, with prevalence increasing with age. It is well worth noting that the most harrowing diseases in the present day relate to what has been called “the hypersensitivity” of rich westerners. It seems that the “patrician malady” now has potent psychological symptoms on its resumé. Insanity and mental ills of wide array are evidenced by the increasing numbers of counselors, therapists, social workers, and psychologists in our midst. Then, we must mention the abundance of psychiatrists and psychotherapeutic agents they prescribe. Anti-psychotic agents are the highest revenue producing class of drugs in America. Disabling mental illness has become epidemic in the USA. Minor mental ills like anxiety, phobias, and simple depression are rampant. Rich Man, Poor Man Diseases
The main cause of poverty or financial struggle is fear and ignorance not the economy or the government or the rich. Kiyosaki has also stated that, “health, wealth, and happiness are closely related.” He cites statistics suggesting that wealthier people have longer life spans. That may be so as Mr. Kiyosaki admits, “health care has become wealth care.” He also tells of spending one night in the hospital for “observation” which cost $34,000. Otis Brawley, former chief medical officer for the American Cancer Society looks at the situation differently in How We Do Harm. Money cannot buy health, even millions of dollars. Nonetheless, Americans spend vast monies in that quest all the while medicine is in freefall: “The system is not failing. It’s functioning exactly as designed. It’s designed to run up health-care costs. It’s about the greedy serving the gluttonous.” Decades ago, Robert Mendelsohn in Confessions of a Medical Heretic took the long view in saying, “There’s no way anybody can justify the billions of dollars we spend every year on ‘health care.’ We’re not getting healthier as the bill gets higher, we’re getting sicker. Whether or not we have national health insurance is, at best, irrelevant and, at worst, one of the most dangerous decisions facing us in the years ahead. Because even if all doctors’ services were free, disease and disability would not decrease.” But dare we suggest those who live longer in the West are often not recognizably healthy in the few extra years they may live. The medical system appears to keep many people alive beyond their years in distressing states of existence, connected to devices, frequenting clinics and hospitals, and imbibing hands full of pills daily. Poor people have their own problems. And, poverty like disease is a complicated issue. It is relative to all sorts of factors and covers wide territory. Then, fear and ignorance are still rampant even in the relatively advanced 21st century world. Poverty and illness have much in common. But, fear and ignorance appear in many forms and the rich may confront them as frequently as the poor. Not only in regard to money but quite clearly related to health issues. Relevant to our topic, poverty over the ages has been accompanied with predispositions to all manner of problems and challenges – quite prominent among them illness and disease. Historically speaking, it is not hard to recognize that the bulk of serious and even deadly diseases in past times might well be called “Poor Man Diseases.” Those ills in the likes of smallpox and plague, typhoid and cholera, diphtheria and whooping cough, measles and mumps, etc. were not totally limited to the poor, but those contagions certainly found far more victims in the lower classes. Infectious diseases in the 19th century were considered the stigmata of poverty, according to Sir William Osler, the Father of American Medicine. Poverty and disease have traveled hand-in-hand for long times. They have appeared commonly in places with meager food and dirty water, poor ventilation and limited sanitation. Interestingly when contagions hit, the rich often removed themselves to their country homes. And their physicians frequently followed. Many of those wealthy folks had their own ills, but they were much less emergent and likely to have deadly outcomes as we have seen. Today in the western world, it is Rich Man Diseases – chronic rather than acute ones – like hypertension and arthritis, diabetes and heart disease, stroke and cancer which have become major causes of morbidity and mortality. The transition from infectious to non-communicable diseases occurred in the early 1900s largely as a result of improved public health measures and has persisted ever since. As people live longer, the incidence of chronic diseases continues to grow. It is well understood that individual lifestyles and behaviors as well as community factors play important roles in the development of these diseases. Thus, many of these conditions are considered to be preventable; their risk factors include physical inactivity and obesity, poor nutrition and overeating, tobacco use as well as excessive alcohol and abuse of drugs – prescribed and self-administered. Investment in prevention continues to be small compared with treatment. That is so, even while the cost of chronic disease is expected to reach almost $50 trillion worldwide by 2030. From another angle, the major diseases in past times might be considered “social diseases” – in the sense that whole levels of societies were affected and the diseases passed around simultaneously, or nearly so. Now, people in the West have similar ills but they develop insidiously and less dramatically – with the exception of uncommon diseases like the coronavirus epidemic. All of us try to blame our problems – financial or otherwise – on others. But, our problems belong to us – whether they involve wealth or health. Much as Robert Kiyosaki suggests that fear and ignorance are the ultimate causes of poverty, so too are they the true source of illness and disease. You see, advanced beings – few that there are or ever have been recognized in public life – are wise and loving, pure in spirit and thence in mind and body. The Buddha, Krishna, the Christ, and others who have emulated them never suffered from illness because of the perfection of their beings which rendered them impervious to disease. That perfection is built on the opposite of fear and ignorance: Love and Wisdom.  The Great Ones – past and present – quite naturally manifest Health and project it constantly as suggested by the halos and auras depicted in artworks of saints and avatars over the ages. They also can attract whatever the need of any moment require because they have passed beyond Desire for anything but the betterment of all beings. So, they understand real wealth as real health and express them. Now, few mortals in any one lifetime can meet that high bar. But, we can seek to approximate it through measures similar to those taught to Robert Kiyosaki by his Rich Dad. If people can learn how to make money and become rich in the material world, they can also learn how to evolve into healthy beings and become whole. Most all of us can work on that. We are moving in that direction – often in spite of ourselves. Nature – whether we know it or not – is pushing and prodding us in that direction all the time. We certainly can take lessons from Mother Nature – whom we too often ignore since so much of life is taken up by man-made occupations, conveniences, and entertainments. Mother Nature will be addressed at length in a latter chapter. Looking at Mother Nature’s promptings as well as other potentially healing measures is a major reason for this book and will become more obvious in succeeding pages. Along the way, we say again that accruing wealth clearly has drawbacks. And, one of them is the development of Rich Man Diseases. Authorities and Academics, Experts
and Salesmen
There are many people in the world of money, finance and investments who have absolutely no idea what they are talking about. Most people in the money industry are just spouting off sales pitches like used car salesmen. Robert Kiyosaki makes it clear in this statement and throughout his book that many bankers, brokers and financial advisors, regardless of their training, are not as practically learned in their field as they wish to be known. He believes his job is to be part of this unprecedented evolution of humanity, the era where humans work purely with their minds, and with their bodies. Because that is where the action is. Then as he brings in minds and bodies, it is surely relevant to talk about health and healing. We say that the case is as much the same where medical professionals are concerned as with financial “experts.” In fact, medical “experts” generally spout “sales pitches” taught them in their training while leaning upon medical terminology to pass beyond their relative ignorance of the most important aspects of human beings – energy, mind, and spirit. “Physicians
prescribe drugs of which they know little
for diseases of which they know less to patients of which they know absolutely nothing.” Voltaire - 18th century After 250 years, this is the continuing state of things – but all is subject to change. And we, like Robert Kiyosaki, can do our own part – which will benefit ourselves as well as add to the light and goodness and health in the world. You see, it’s this way: Collectively and personally, we act like we know so much, when in fact we know very little. Like adolescents who think they know more than their parents. Young people, their parents and the whole society are just struggling along the way because none of us have a road map for the journey. Even if we did, it seems likely that most of us would pay little heed to it. And so, the Biblical pronouncement seems to fit here: “If a blind man lead a blind man, they both fall in the ditch.” Matthew 15:14 Not long ago (1997), scientific journalist John Horgan published a book called The End Of Science: Facing The Limits Of Knowledge In The Twilight Of The Scientific Age to share his belief that all major scientific discoveries – natural selection, the double helix, the big bang, relativity and quantum theories – have been made. Only refinements are left and no more revelations or revolutions are yet to be had. Just details. Close reading of history indicates that similar thinking was in vogue at the turn of the preceding two centuries. In any period, this seems like a foolish Know-It-All attitude. How arrogant to think that we have plumbed the width, breadth and depth of creation in the course of two hundred years of scientific studies. Aren’t we really just beginning to scratch the surface of understanding? How much is left to be uncovered? What do we know of the origins of life? How many secrets has the Earth yet to divulge? How little of the solar system – not to mention the galaxy – have we investigated in any meaningful way? That even from purely the materialistic standpoint. “What
we know is a drop.
What we don't know is an ocean.” Isaac Newton More importantly and closer to home: How much do we really KNOW about human beings – their conception, gestation, and passage through the birth canal and appearance on the world stage? What do we really understand regarding human function other than through the study of the systems biology in vogue today? How is it that we have gathered so little useful information on brain-mind function following on many billions or trillions of dollars of research? Do we really understand the uncountable processes – even from a material angle – which go on inside a single cell moment by moment to sustain the larger organism? Then too, do we have more than clues as to how the 30 trillion cells in the human body work together in health – as well as in illness and injury? Then, dare we consider the ills to which humans are susceptible in the course of a lifetime? How many ills, diseases, and syndromes do we really understand in the least? When was the last time a CURE was found for any disease? Why do we seem to have more and more diseases – physical and mental – and many more drugs on the market, if we really understand the human form – body and being? Terminology and verbosity plague modern medicine. How is that the naming and labeling of patient ills is the major part of medical endeavors? Naming gives some power to the namer in medicine as in other parts of life, but all too often naming simply reveals ignorance and limitations of medical understanding: 1) Disease - Dis-ease may be a better name for many of the ills through which humans pass. Since “diseases” are often little more than labels. 2) Disorder - Out-of-order might explain many of the problems of body, mind, and soul that we encounter. Can we recognize that Order only fully reigns supreme in the lives of saints and gods? 3) Condition - “What condition was my condition in?” Life is a continual passage through cycles. Roses do not sprout forth every day but they do go through all manner of changes while producing thorns as well as color and fragrance. 4) Affliction - We all become afflicted, if we live long enough. But a Buddhist tells us that, “Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.” 5) Infection - Infections give us permission to blame ever-present microbes, viruses, etc. into our enemies. 6) Illness - Illness can be an opportunity or challenge, problem or disaster for those who dare to imagine. 7) Malady - The prefix mal tells of the “evil” which some people imagine to cause their discomforts. 8) Sickness - Sickness is a state of mind as well as body. Samuel Hahnemann said long ago, “There are no diseases, only sick people.” 9) Syndrome - We ought not to forget this name which medics bandy around when confronting human ills which do not fit into typical terms. From these common categories, we pass to descriptors – adjectives used in modern medical nomenclature – also most often hiding ignorance: 1) Benign - as in prostatic hypertrophy. Not malignant or cancerous. The Big CA is still far, far from being understood. Neither do we know the cause of most benign ills. 2) Essential - as in hypertension. Essentially, the cause is not known. 3) Constitutional - thought to be genetic, but not proven. 4) Primary - as in a tumor; the problem is not Secondary to a detectable source. So again, the cause is unknown. 5) Etiology Unknown - “We simply can’t find the cause, but we will keep looking.” 6) Idiopathic - the same as Etiology Unknown. In his book The Human Body, Isaac Asimov commented on the term “idiopathic” he had found in the 20th edition of Stedman's Medical Dictionary: “A high-flown term to conceal ignorance.” 7) Eponymous - as in Lou Gehrig’ s disease. Putting someone’s name on a set of symptoms makes the condition more personal, but the cause usually remains unknown. Many of these conditions are also alternatively called syndromes, as in Sjogren’s or Down’s. 8) Stress-induced - pointing to mental-emotional influences. This is a common backup label used when a physical cause can’t be found for the problem. Then, it can be blamed on the environment or on emotions. “Go see a psychiatrist.” 9) Viral - so-called viral diseases can mimic all sorts of problems. But like bacteria, viruses are generally omnipresent and innocuous. “It seems to be an infection, but it’s not bacterial. So, you must have a virus.” Viruses are blamed for everything these days. A friend told the writer how her mother was concerned about the granddaughter. “She better be careful spending so much time in front of that computer. She might get one of those computer viruses.” 10) Cryptogenic - like the odd Cryptogenic Organizing Pneumonia Mimicking Hydatid Disease. Cryptogenic means hidden cause. “This is so mysterious, we have hardly a clue.” 11) Acronymous - diseases like AIDS, SARS, and SIDS may be so obtuse that they need long names, like COPMHD above. Acronyms can make diseases more manageable at least for paperwork purposes. 12) Asymptomatic - as in asymptomatic hepatitis in which the “disease” shows only on tests. “You look well and seem well, but one of those routine tests we did came up with an abnormal result. Because of which we will most definitely have to do further ones.” 13) Spontaneous - as in conditions which arise without warning or apparent cause. Medics can add “Spontaneous” in front of the rest of the label. 14) Idiosyncratic - as in one of a kind. We have never seen anything quite like this before. We are having a time deciding why it happened to you. And we may need more time.” 15) Allergic - as in reactions. “Your body is reacting abnormally. This is surely due to foreign substances that don’t bother most people. We don’t know why this situation has developed at this time. But, we sure can do some testing and maybe some treatment against that substance which has begun to disturb you for who knows what reason.” 16) Autoimmune - refers to diseases or syndromes in which the body seems to attack its own cells and tissues. There are literally dozens of these conditions in the likes of – rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, Crohn's disease, celiac disease, ulcerative colitis, Graves’s disease, Hashimoto's thyroiditis, Addison's disease, dermatomyositis, psoriasis, type 1 diabetes, multiple sclerosis, scleroderma. 17) Latinized - as in encephalitis. Rather than say brain fever, used for long times, the Latin term sounds more professional and impressive. 18) -itis - referring to the suffix as in encephalitis. Just tack -itis onto any Latin name for a body part and you have a disease. But typically of unknown cause. -itis refers to inflammation. 19) -osis - like halitosis or keratosis. -osis just means an abnormal condition, disease or accentuation of a body part or process. It sounds more professional than bad breath or thickening of skin. 20) -pathy - like cardiomyopathy. Put -pathy together at the end of a word to name a condition which is usually scary, persistent and relatively untreatable. -pathy is simply a Latin term meaning disease. 21) Rheumatic or rheumatoid - as in fever or arthritis. These names suggest that the whole body is involved, thus a systemic disease. Source usually undetermined. 22) Descriptive - as in Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). Many diagnoses are just mere descriptions of what the physician understands from symptoms and tests, or thinks s/he understands. 23) Congenital - as in birth defect. “He was born with it. We don’t know why. There is nothing we can do about it. It is congenital, maybe in the genes. He will have to learn to live with it.” 24) Familial - as in Familial Hypercholesterolemia. “It runs in the family, so it must be hereditary. Let’s blame it on the ancestors!” 25) Hereditary - as in hemophilia. “We have found the genes which sometimes, but not always causes this problem. We are doing further studies to enhance understanding and hopefully treatment.” 26) Genetic - as in definitely hereditary and identifiable by a genetic marker. “We think we understand the cause. We have found a gene which may be important. But we still can’t do much about your problem. Keep checking with us.” Genes and DNA are in these days. But, they often lead us to dead ends. What creates genes, genetic material, DNA? 27) Incurable - as in many of the above mentioned ills. But, what makes a disease incurable? And who says it so? If a disease has been cured only once, shouldn’t it be then considered curable. 28) Terminal - incurable diseases often become terminal. But then, everything is terminal. Even the earth and sun and stars come and go. Things are temporary. What continues? Another good question. Many people place medical doctors on pedestals and believe them to have access to extraordinary knowledge and ability. This state has been magnified all the more as society has gradually made science into the modern religion. Even though doctors “practice” medicine and more often than not “try” remedies on their patients. The media are constantly filled with the touted “wonders of science.” Although they have had relatively little benefit for the vast majority of sick people around the world. Dr. Lewis Thomas has called medicine “The Youngest Science,” which is being more than generous. For almost every advancement – and every medical remedy in particular – there is a side effect which, if seen with wide eyes, may be more problematic than the original issue or illness. “I cannot think of a single field in biology or medicine in which we can claim genuine understanding, and it seems to me the more we learn about living creatures, especially ourselves, the stranger life becomes.” (Lewis Thomas, Discover Magazine - Oct 1980) Belief is clearly important for doctor and patient in the midst of dealing with human conditions and afflictions. Belief can make a huge difference. But all too often, the power of belief wanes with time. New remedies are well known to have much better results. William Osler, Father of American Medicine, noted long ago that, “New remedies, like new servants, seems always to do well at first, but, with the one as with the other, it takes time before the good and bad qualities can be discovered.” Furthermore, “The blind faith which some men have in medicines illustrates too often the greatest of all human capacities – the capacity for self-deception.” Robert Kiyosaki considers the financial system as Fake in a host of ways in his book by that name. Much the same can be said of our the medical system dating back for generations. Other systems in our day have major parts of their identity, mission, and activity to which that adjective may apply. The political and legal systems come to mind. Furthermore, we all should seek to move from deceiving ourselves to educating ourselves. We need to learn how to know human beings – not just their bodies, which we can’t really understand without recognizing their inner, subtler dimensions – spirit and soul, mind and emotions. We must grow beyond the continuing relative state of medical ignorance. There are efforts afoot in that direction among those seeking to reform the medical system in the West. In past decades, there have been incremental changes from healing arts buildings of past generations to medical and health sciences centers of the present day. But arguably, the greatest change has been in enormously increased medical costs, the legalization of medical advertisement, the major influence and enrichment of drug companies, and the ubiquitous power of medical propaganda. Humans are not just physical-material mechanisms. For any true reform to eventuate, it will require looking deeply within, scratching below the surface of skin and bones and organs, and touching sources and causes. The current vogue for Health Care Reform instead of being applauded may well call for tears or laughter – or both. If we really KNEW the medical system even a little better, we might be shuddering instead of fighting and fretting. We would then catch glimmers of how little we yet really KNOW of humans and their conditions. While Mr. Kiyosaki endeavors to change financial thinking for personal benefit, we think it time to change thinking in medical terms to ones of deeper and truer understanding of health and healing. Why
Medical Reform is a Joke?
Here are a dozen-plus reasons to question so-called health care reform: 1) There is no such thing as “health care.” Physicians know next to nothing about health. They never take a single course in health. They only know about disease, and not all that much about many of them. 2) It follows that there is simply no such thing as health insurance. All we have is sickness insurance, which very often adds to the cost of medical care because physicians believe in their disease model. They test and test and test at our expense. 3) The present medical model promotes spending, duplication and waste – regardless of any intended reform. This pattern has been developing since the 1940s, when Tinsley Harrison, the famed editor of a textbook on internal medicine named after him, wrote about “the present-day tendency towards a five-minute history followed by a five-day barrage of special tests in the hope that the diagnostic rabbit may suddenly emerge from the laboratory hat.” Think how much worse it has gotten in 80 years. 4) The bottom line in the medical office, clinic, and hospital is often income not care or service. The whole system caters to medical professionals and not human beings in the grasp of patienthood. We have medicine meant mainly for doctors not people: Doctor Medicine not Patient Medicine. 5) Physicians use protocols, guidelines, algorithms, and most of all, guess work to pursue diagnoses of patient problems. Your physician generally knows only tidbits about the ills with which he deals. And s/he doesn’t or can’t take the time to do much better. 6) There are dozens of ways your physician can and does say “I don't know,” while using medical terminology and professional verbosity to make you think otherwise. [See the list of medical terms above.] 7) Physicians get paid for dealing with illness, not with making you well. Job security and income are based on keeping you coming to the clinic and the hospital, not for helping you stay home and at work. 8) Medics take bigger and bigger bites out of western economies because we believe they KNOW what they are doing. Most of the time, they use tests, procedures and scientific propaganda to hide their ignorance. Our ignorance and their ignorance add up to large medical bills. 9) We live in an age of technology which has taken men to the moon. We imagine physical and medical scientists to be akin to rocket scientists. But we have yet to usefully understand arthritis, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, cancer, stroke, schizophrenia, etc. The list is almost endless. 10) Clinics and hospitals are memorials to disease, not healing. Today, hospitals are treated as shrines and physicians as priests. Yet, how holy, healthy, and healing are they really? 11) Medical and cancer centers get larger and larger, and more and more expensive – but not because people are cured. Cancer, like many other modern diseases, is largely incurable for the simple fact that its causes are almost totally unknown. How can such a disease be reasonably treated and dealt with when its causes are yet unknown after decades of the War on Cancer. 12) Westerners pay huge bills for medical care which may be no more effective than the machinations of witch doctors. They actually may be less effective while costing fantastically more money. Many witch doctors and shamans work for free. 13) Physicians NEVER give guarantees on their treatments and surgeries. If any thing goes wrong, you suffer physical, emotional, financial and other consequences. You pay for doctors' mistakes. 14) Drugs, drugs, more drugs and prescriptions for them have become a focal point if not THE focal point of modern medicine. Patients who leave their practitioner’s office without a prescription often feel cheated. That even though prescription drugs often add to the problems of the sick and injured. If a drug has therapeutic effects, it likely has side effects, ill effects, and even worse. And, it should be clear that neither drugs neither heal nor bring health. Why do patients and the public accept this and so many other blatantly absurd situations when they put themselves in medical hands? Here is a quick rejoinder which explains the situation due to The POWER of a Physician: “How many people do you know whom you might meet and within 10 minutes be willing to get naked at their request? And pay to do it?” Two answers come to mind at the present. One is a physician, the other is a prostitute. Both take your money – often under questionable circumstances. They may leave you feeling better for a few moments, but the long term effects may not be good for your health – physical, financial and otherwise. And, that's no joke.
Continue reading at The War on Drugs
and Cancer.
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Introduction - Table of Contents
Online Reading