THE MEDICAL RESEARCH
PROCESS: AN OVERVIEW
SHOWING HOW LONG DOCTORS
HAVE KNOWN HOW TO RESEARCH

STATISTICS SAY WHO
Gets Conditions,
Don't Wait Centuries To Act on Them


Self-Test:

About 90% of crime is by _____.  About 90% of alcoholism is by _____.
About 90% of suicide is by _____.  About 90% of lung cancer is by _____.

Links to Answers At Bottom

To solve a problem, researchers have long known to ascertain any controlling correlation between it and WHO has/does it.
  • 1. Learn WHO (generally speaking herein, let's say 90% of the time) has it, who does it.

  • 2. Learn what is different about them. They are getting/doing something different; find out what is different that they are doing, ingesting, receiving, etc.

  • 3. Study the identifiable population group (not just a limited segment or even citing one's own personal case!).   It is that professional analysis process gives the professional the answer. (Whether the layman understands, is quite another point; witness the lay inability to grasp professional mathematical data showing that the planet earth is round, a globe, a moving globe -- all concepts contrary to the lay "common sense" that the planet earth is flat and motionless. Click here for background on this.)
  • Later you—or more likely, a descendant a century or two or three later, may learn WHY. The correlation-causation-analysis process dating in medicine back to at least 1537 (though it may seem mysterious to laymen) is pure science, and is one of doctors' historic techniques in determining causation and thus in determining prevention methods.

    A layman may want to look at what people do in common (everybody combs their hair, for example), but looking at what people do in common (drink milk, wear footwear, etc.) is NOT the way to find out why they are getting something different (e.g., lung cancer). Look for the difference (activity, circumstance, or other variable): That is the crucial difference between how a professional such as a doctor, vs. a layman, thinks on the point. The professional looks for the variable; the laymen looks for the commonality. The professional knows to look for the difference; the layman doesn't, but is conned by the notion of looking at what people do in common.

    The statistical analysis process has long been known and used. Records on use of statistics to analyze data trace back for centuries—back to, e.g.,

    "the reign of [English King] Henry II (1154-1189)," says Bentley College Mathematics Professor Amir D. Aczel, Ph.D., Statistics: Concepts and Applications (Chicago: Richard D. Irwin, Inc., Pub., 1995), p 245.

    Analytically, "the general concept underlying the [statistical analysis] procedure was understood by the Britons of the 12th century!" (p 248).


    "The doctor must know the causes and symptoms of the disease [in order to] prescribe the right medicine."—Prof. Aureolus Phillipus Theophrastus von Hohenheim (1493-1541), University of Basle (Paracelsus, 5 June 1527). He noted the chemical nature of the human body, and correctly concluded that prescribing chemicals would aid in curing disease. He initiated the modern chemical drug concept, including chemicals such as copper vitriol, silver nitrate, arsenic, antimony compounds, and zinc oxide (the latter being still used for skin diseases)

    Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564), Prof. of Medicine, University of Padua, promoted dissections, as part of medical school training. His book De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Septem [The Fabric of the Human Body] (Basileæ: Ioannis Oporini, 1543; repr. Arlington, Mass.: Medicina Rara, 1975) described the structure of the human body.

    Dr. William Harvey (1578-1657), Prof. of Medicine, and King's Physician (like Surgeon General), studied physiology, the basis for modern internal medicine. His research covered the process of blood circulation. His Exercitatio Anatomica de Circulatione Sanguinis [Anatomical Exercise on the Motion of the Heart and Blood] (Cantabrigiae: Rogeri Danielis, 1628), furthered understanding of how the body functions.

    Medical Statistics from Graunt to Farr (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1948), by Major Greenwood, gives an overview of medical statistics in the era of Graunt - Farr, 1660's - 1830's. The material was presented at the Royal College of Physicians of London in February 1943, after publication in Biometrika vol. 32, part 2 (1941); parts 3 and 4 (1942); and vol. 33, part 1 (1943).

    Testimony of Two Men (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1968) by Taylor Caldwell, is a profile of two doctors at the turn of the nineteenth century. It describes progress in medicine and surgery, treatment changes, and cleanliness (e.g., hand-washing). It includes data on medicine adaptation to industrialization.

    Medical Uses of Statistics (Boston, Mass.: NEJM Books, 1992), by John C. Bailar and Frederick Mostelle, provide a sound professional analysis on the subject.

    American Medicine and Statistical Thinking, 1800-1860 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ Press, 1984), by James H. Cassedy, gives additional historical background.

    Also useful references are:
  • Statistics in Medicine (Boston: Little, Brown, 1974), by Theodore Colton
  • Basic Statistics: A Primer for the Biomedical Sciences (New York: J. Wiley, 1964), by Olive Jean Dunn
  • Primer of Biostatistics (New York: McGraw-Hill, Health Professions Division, 1997), by Prof. Stanton A. Glantz
  • How Mathematics Happened: The First 50,000 Years (Prometheus Books, 2007), by Prof. Peter Rudman
  • the article, "The Nature of Scientific Evidence," in the medical journal Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery, Vol. 119 (issue 7) pp 2310-2311 (June 2007), by Scott L. Spear, M.D.
  • Here are examples of what doctors know, how long they've known it, and how doctors and others have applied the statistical analysis process to save lives.

    Examples of Medical Knowledge
    Cataract Surgery - 1000 BC Roman Surgery - 100 BC
    Medical Text - 10th century Medical School - 12th century
    Scurvy - 1537 Plastic Surgery - 1597
    Dose-Response - 1600's Analysis of Effect of
    Heat vs. Water - 1785
    Smallpox - 1796 Cholera - 1854
    Mendel's Analysis - 1865 Rabies - 1885
    Streptococcus - 1932 Medical Discoveries
    Statistics' Value

    Even one factor alone can be enough to have major, even fatal, results. Medical science has long known this. A sad example came 700 years ago when a layman decided to do a medical experiment(!). He was a politician, serving as a bad example, showing what politicians and laymen should not do. Here is the medical experiment he (Frederick II, emperor 1215-1250) ordered done:
    "bade foster mothers to suckle . . . children, to bathe and wash them but in no way to prattle with them or speak to them, for he wanted to learn whether they would speak the Hebrew language, which was the oldest, or Greek or Latin, or Arabic, or perhaps the language of their parents of whom they had been born. But he labored in vain, because all the children died. For they could not live without the petting and joyful faces and loving words of their foster mothers."
    In modern terms, we call that the 'failure-to-thrive syndrome.' What we can learn from this 13th century experiment, is that

    This is significant, as this site covers what skeptics like to insist is a mere 'single cause' theory, which they claim should be rejected, for that reason alone! Yet more laymen/politicians pretending to know more than trained researchers!!

    So with that said, let's start the review of medical statistics, with background many of us may already know, though not necessarily the medical-science statistical aspect:

    Example One - Scurvy

             Here is an example. Dr. J. G. H. Kramer in 1734 observed a scurvy-fruit/vegetables link (correlation). Soldiers who ate fruit and vegetables generally did not get scurvy; those who did not, generally speaking, got it. Problems: the data was not a 100% correlation; there was 0% data on why. Just data on WHO.

             Dr. James Lind in 1747 observed that data, and studied into a similar 1537 correlation analysis, and further observed that statistics showed a scurvy-fruit juice link. Sailors who drank fruit juice (from oranges, lemons, or limes) did not get scurvy. Those who did not, generally speaking, got it. Problem: the same as 1734, no 100% correlation, and 0% data on why. Just data on WHO.

             Objection, yell the laymen and media!! Fruits are different than fruit juices! And they are both different than vegetables!! There are lots of other variables and correlations. You doctors, you are incompetent! or liars!!

             Indeed, neither the doctor in 1537 nor Dr. Kramer nor Dr. Lind in the 1730's and 1740's knew WHY the correlations/statistics showing a scurvy-fruit and vegetables or fruit-juice link were true. Vitamins such as vitamin C would not be discovered for many centuries. During all those four centuries, all the advocates of fruit and vegetables had as evidence—was correlation statistics! And to laymen, those were b___ s___ !

             As Drs. Kramer and Lind had nothing—repeat, nothing, to prove their link claim but correlations/statistics (WHO generally gets the scurvy, not, WHY they get it), the public and thus the government refused to act on those statistics (pure science) for almost fifty more years. They were not 100% you see!!

             And much worse to laymen, the idea of going by such statistics violated peoples' rights. It did not sit well with laymen, i.e., it was not politically acceptable to issue fruits and vegetables to common soldiers and sailors. Those were for officers, only. They had a right (had earned it!) to better food!! Officers get the fruits and vegetables, not the common soldiers and sailors! How dare mere doctors object to the established ways of society!! propose violating officers' rights!!

    Many people suffered as a result of such lay and social-pressure nonsense and prejudice against correlation statistics (e.g., that a correlation should cover 100% of the population, not focus on differences within the population like doctors say). Finally, in 1795, British navy officials agreed not to wait for proof that the statistics have a validity that can be acted on immediately, prior to knowing the WHY.

    British naval officials agreed simply to respect the statistics, and put aside the fact that it was not politically acceptable to issue equal rations to all! The navy agreed to violate officers' rights, and issued an order ('order' - now that's a bad word, sounds like it's violating somebody's rights!!), put limes on its ships, accessible to all. In fact, so many limes were issued that British sailors would sometimes be called "limeys." Scurvy ceased among them! Knowing the correlation statistics on WHO gets a problem and dealing with that, works, they found -- no need to wait centuries until some research doctor discovers why!

    Correlation statistics—pure science—worked. But Drs. Kramer and Lind died. They never knew WHY. The navy officials died. They never knew WHY. They merely knew WHO. That was enough to solve the problem. Much more time would go by.

    Not until almost four centuries after the first 1537 data came in -- not until two centuries after these WHO analyses did chemist Jack C. Drummond find the WHY. Drummond called the mysterious statistical thing that was working — "Vitamin C" — in 1920. (A reader-friendly book on this subject is by Isaac Asimov, Ph.D., How Did We Find Out About Vitamins? [New York: Walker and Co, 1974], pages 8-10.) A lot of lives were saved beginning in 1795, by finally simply accepting the 1537 - 1747 medical analyses and statistics, pure science, violating officers' rights, and not waiting for that 1920 discovery.

    Example Two - Smallpox

    In the 1790's, the cause of smallpox was unknown. All that was known was "who" did not get smallpox: "rural . . . cattle . . . and dairy workers [who had] had . . . cowpox." Remember from school, you learned that Dr. Edward Jenner in England noticed this?

    That's all that was known. One doctor knew "who" didn't get smallpox: cattle and dairy workers. He didn't know "why."

    So he wondered whether the unknown substance (cowpox pus, active ingredient unknown), could be injected into people and thus prevent them getting smallpox? On 14 May 1796, he injected James Phipps, a "boy about eight years old," with the unknown substance (cowpox pus!).

    What was the result? of knowing only the "who" but not the "why"?








    It worked! Success!!

    Knowing who doesn't get smallpox, solved the problem, without his ever learning why! Result, "smallpox epidemics were eliminated."—James H. Otto (Indiana High School Biology Teacher) and Albert Towle (Prof, Biology, California State University), Modern Biology [5th ed] (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston Pub, 1973), pp 270-271.

    Dr. Jenner's use of statistics meant "he investigated cases of cowpox . . . and kept track of their subsequent exposure to smallpox. And in all his records of . . . cowpox, not one person who had had it ever contracted smallpox," says Elizabeth Rider Montgomery, The Story Behind Great Medical Discoveries (New York: Robert M. McBride & Co., 1945), pp 205-210 at 207.

    Of course, at first, hostile people "would not listen." They "even organized anti-vaccination campaigns." Fortunately, this opposition faded, though "gradually," say Otto and Towle, supra,


    Too bad the opposition to the knowledge on how to prevent
    crime, alcoholism, lung cancer,
    and suicide has not faded. Politicians and media have not changed; too many still desire,
    want, enjoy, intend for people to suffer, and so oppose medical-fact-based prevention in
    these areas. Remember, in their view, their job depends on YOUR continued suffering.
    So they oppose acting on doctors' research findings on how to prevent most crime,
    alcoholism, lung cancer, suicide, etc.

    Example Three - Rabies

    Louis Pasteur

    How to prevent people from getting rabies if bitten by a rabid animal? This was a significant problem in the 1800's. The eminent Louis Pasteur wanted to help solve the problem.

    The statistics then were, rabies was 100% fatal. Doctors' job is to create new methods/treatments that OVERRULE such facts. We don't go to a doctor simply to be told the OLD statistics (you'll die, 100% for sure!!)
    We go to the doctor, create a new reality, develop new statistics of cure, new statistics that don't even exist yet, even if the doctor doesn't know the why.

    That was the situation in Pasteur's era: rabies were 100% fatal. Worse, doctors "did not know of the existence of viruses." The problem was, it is a virus that does the killing by "destroying brain and spinal-cord tissue."

    Pasteur looked hard to solve this dread condition, with "microscopic examination of the . . . tissue" infected. But this "did not reveal any microorganisms [because] the rabies virus is too small to be seen with an ordinary microscope."

    All that Pasteur knew in 1885 was "who" statistically wouldn't get rabies. No, he didn't even know that! He only knew what wouldn't get rabies: animals that had received a fourteen-day dose of "spinal-cord tissue taken from an infected dog or rabbit . . . dried for fourteen days . . . continued day after day until . . . given an injection of full-strength virus in the fourteenth injection."

    Nobody knew why! Viruses were unknown. They didn't even know "who." (So the pre-Pasteur statistics were, rabies is 100% fatal! regardless of 'who' gets it!)

    If we believe the evil politicans and media pundits who hate taking prompt action, insist that more research is needed, more, more, more, more, more . . . . the rabies problem would still not be solved! And we must not overlook those evil ones who have such a hatred of research, that they give out the impression that research is irrelevant to their answers!

    Fortunately, such politicians and media types are liars.

    Pasteur knew that the doctor does not need to know "why," just "who," or at least, merely, "what"! The goal is to create a new level of reality, create new yet-future statistics—of success with some new treatment invented to end the old statistical fact, in the case of rabies, 100% fatal.

    On 6 July 1885, "a frantic mother took her son to Pasteur's laboratory, begging him to use any method to save her son's life. The boy had been attacked by a rabid dog two days before." Remember, Pasteur still doesn't know who doesn't get rabies. He only knows just "what" doesn't get it--vaccinated animals!!

    Now there is an emergency. Let's use "any method to save . . . life" — the approach so ultra-hated by politicans and media pundits who HATE (revile or distract attention off) the 90% tobacco-based solution to most alcoholism, lung cancer, crime, and suicide.

    This woman with the soon-to-be dead son wanted the problem solved. NOW, not in a couple centuries! So, in the emergency, determined to overrule the 100% fatal statistic of the past, and create new statistics of future success, Pasteur did the fourteen day program on the boy (deleting the first two days of the program! as it had taken two days since the bite for the woman to get her son across country to Pasteur!).

    Result: The rabies injections worked, and worked anyway!! Remember, all Pasteur had known prior to this incident was—not even "who"!!

    "This series of injections, known as the Pasteur treatment, is [still] used today to immunize victims of bites by rabid animals" (with only one change, using not rabbits but ducks).—Otto and Towle, Modern Biology, supra, pp 272-273.

    Example Four - Streptococcus Infection

    As recently as the 1930's, streptococus infections could kill when "beyond medical control." Dr. Gerhard Domagk in 1932 had a sick girl on his hands, "dying of a streptococcic infection . . . beyond medical control." Nobody knows what to do; it's certain death. But he knew of a "red dye called prontosil [that] had remarkable germ-killing powers." Nobody knew why it worked! They only knew "what"—animals that had received it, recovered. Now he had an emergency, the sick, dying girl. Let's try it. NOW. Not in a couple centuries. It worked. The girl recovered!

    Not until later was it learned "why" the red dye worked against germs! The red dye contained sulfanilimide, "the first of an important family [of drugs] known as the sulfa drugs." Otto and Towle, Modern Biology, supra, pp 276.

    Example Five - Dose-Response Statistics

             Another aspect of statistics is "dose-response" correlation. A "dose-response" correlation supports causation. Here is a classic example. Robert Hooke (1653-1703) did a statistical analysis of weights and spring lengths. Re weights at the end of a spring, he recorded the resulting statistics: More weight, longer spring; less weight, shorter spring. The weight was the independent variable. Conclusion: Varied weight causes spring length to change, i.e., a "dose-response" correlation (an aspect of statistics) supports causation. This dose-response correlation constitutes a strong disproof of uneducated people's anti-statistics notions.

    Example Six - Mendel's Genetic Analyses

    Another example most of us are generally familiar with (from, e.g., high school biology classes) relates to the analysis of genetic characteristics, e.g., the distinction between dominant and recessive genes, and the passing on from generation to generation of genetic characteristics.

    Gregor Mendel

    "In 1865, Gregor Mendel . . . published [findings] . . . on the principles. . . . It is . . . a great tribute to Mendel that the conclusions he arrived at [then] stand today, practically unchanged, as the basis of the science of genetics. . . . his conception of inheritance was developed without a knowledge of chromosomes and their behavior."—Otto and Towle, Modern Biology, supra, pp 133-134. He determined, correctly, that these then unknown things "occur in pairs" (dominant and recessive), and that the process involves something that does "mask or prevent expression of the other" (meaning that the dominant trait prevents the recessive trait), p. 136.

    "The work of Gregor Mendel seems even more remarkable when you consider that he made his brilliant observations, drew valid conclusions, and formulated hypotheses without any knowledge of genetic materials. It was twenty years after the [1865] publication of his paper [before] the cell nucleus was recognized as the center of hereditary materials.

    "Mendel knew nothing of the [action process] of chromosomes during meiosis. In fact, he had never heard of a chromosome. Yet he formulated the [correct analysis] of [the process] on the [sole] basis of what he observed . . . . Mendel described what happened [statistically] in various genetic crosses without having any idea of the biological mechanisms by which they occurred."—Otto and Towle, Modern Biology, supra, p 149.

    Example Seven - Hutton's Heat vs. Water Effects Analysis

    James Hutton, M.D. (1726-1797), lived in Scotland. An obscure issue of the effects of water vs. heat arose. This was in context of a subject matter then still in infancy, the subject of geology, and specifcally, in context of the process by which rock stratas are formed. Epistemology considerations were also involved.

    Dr. Hutton was not a geologist (there weren't any!) nor an epistemologist, but he knew medical principles of the type being cited here. So he analyzed the subject. A issue then was whether rocks, specifically, quartz and feldspar, had dissolved from the primoridal minerals in water by the action of water alone.

    Applying the methodology type cited herein, Dr. Hutton revealed in a two-part presentation (7 March and 4 April 1785), his conclusion that "heat is an agent competent for the consolidation of strata, which water alone is not." This analysis could of course not be proved then in 1785! The modern industrial technology and processes to heat rocks sufficiently to melt and crystalize them, did not exist in 1785!! But knowing the analysis process, Dr. Hutton was correct.

    Wherefore, Dr. "Hutton turned out to be right about the heat origin [conclusion], although it was not until 1986 [201 years later!!] that samples were artifically produced in the laboratory, by allowing quartz and feldspar simultaneously to crystallize out of a melt." This data is reported by Stephen Baxter, Ph.D., Ages in Chaos: James Hutton and the Discovery of Deep Time (Doherty Associates, 2003), pp 130-133.

    Example Eight - Cholera Prevention: The Classic Broad Street Pump Case

    Dr. John "Snow . . . used a spot map to illustrate [statistically] how cases of cholera were centred around the pump. He also made a solid use of statistics to illustrate the connection between the quality of the source of water and cholera cases. He showed that the Southwark and Vauxhall Waterworks Company was taking water from sewage-polluted sections of the Thames and delivering the water to homes with [the statistical result being] an increased incidence of cholera. Snow's study was a major event in the history of public health, and can be regarded as the founding event of the science of epidemiology."

    And "his studies of the pattern of the disease were convincing enough to persuade the local council to disable the well pump by removing its handle." The statistics were the key because (a) "chemical and microscope examination of a sample of the Broad Street pump water was not able to conclusively prove its danger." And (b) "The germ theory was not widely accepted by this time."

    "It was discovered later that this public well had been dug only three feet from an old cesspit that had begun to leak fecal bacteria. A baby who had contracted cholera from another source had its diapers washed into this cesspit." For more on the Broad Street cholera outbreak, click here.

    In short, statistics were a vital key to ending that cholera epidemic, and to to understand prevention for the future.


    Wherefore, in view of the foregoing facts, do not be deceived by politician and lay media propaganda that purports to refute the statistical (and related) data on the subject matter under consideration at this and linked medicolegal.tripod.com/effects.htm sites. The blunt fact is, enough is known scientifically and medically to have LONG AGO taken action to have solved the problems. The problems would have been solved but for the refusal of officials (politicans) to do so. They have the medical data. They HATE it. They HATE people's health and lives. They therefore deliberately REFUSE to act on the medical data.


    For more statistics in medical history, see Elizabeth Rider Montgomery, The Story Behind Great Medical Discoveries (New York: Robert M. McBride & Co., 1945).
  • circulation of the blood statistics by Dr. William Harvey: re "valves in the veins-little gates that fasten tight to keep blood from flowing through [backwards] . . . all [100%] of those valves point toward the heart [to] keep blood flowing away from the heart," p 21. With such statistics, he was enabled to go on to show "that the blood moves in a circle through the body; that the veins take back to the heart the same blood that it previously pumped out," p 22.

  • statistics on chest sounds by Dr. Leopold Auenbrugger, enabling him to devise the percussive process whereby physicians can "distinguish between a healthy chest and one that was diseased," p 28. Auenbrugger had started with statistics on casks, noting different sounds produced dpending on the liquid/air ratio of the contents therein, enabling expertise "in locating the exact spot in a cask where the [contents] ended and air began," p 27.

  • statistics on sound traveling through wood, enabling Dr. Rene Laennec to devise the stethoscope to enable to "distinguish between diseases that, through [another method], gave the same sound, p 32.

  • statistics on the digestion process in the stomach, enabling Dr. William Beaumont to determine "the rate of digestion of various foods . . . the motion of the stomach during digestion . . . the character of the digestive juices . . . the influence on the stomach of worry and excitement, and also the injurious effects of large quantities of tea, coffee and alcohol . . . how the stomach operates, and what interferes with its operation . . . which foods are digested quickly and which take a long time, which are digested in the stomach itself, and which are sent on to be digested in the intestines," pp 37-38.

  • statistics on light and shadow by Dr. Hermann von Helmholtz to devise the opthalmoscope "to see inside the human eye [to show] that the pupil really is a transparent window, and that light directed through it is reflected from the retina," p 42.

  • Introduction Is Done, Now Let's Get Into More Depth

    Medical scientists research the subject of statistics in every nuance. See for example, Maya L. Petersen, Sandra E. Sinisi, and Mark J. van der Laan, "Estimation of Direct Causal Effects," Epidemiology 17 (#3) pp 276-284 (May 2006).

    Question: How good is statistical evidence? Answer: "The utmost. In the hands of experts [like doctors] it is pure science."—Alton Ochsner, M.D., Smoking and Your Life (New York: Julian Messner Pub, 1954 rev 1964), p 108. People who reject statistics by denying that it is science, are mostly "from homes in which neither parent graduated from high school," p 105. Quoting Dr. Warren Weaver, the "disregarding of evidence because it is statistical is unscientific and wholly unwarranted," p 14. People who reject such data are typically "less mentally alert" than non-rejectors, p 98. Or, as we've seen, they are professional haters: media or politicians.

    In other words, people who make remarks such as "correlation is not causation" (in the context herein discussed) generally come from the ranks of the uneducated. Sadly, they are not very "mentally alert." Such people tend to be easy prey for scam artists whose intent is to harm or kill. Such oafs and dullards are

  • often likely to believe vicious types who are making money off hurting people,
  • over doctors and researchers who want to prevent that very harm from occurring.
  • The former denounce statistics, correlations, "pure science," about differences and tirade that factors in common should be used and focused on, not variables, differences. Such bunkum sounds good to the uneducated and unalert. Educated people generally know better.


    "Early writings, some of them believed to date back at least 2,500 years [B.C.E.], give ample evidence on [physicians' sound analysis methods and skill. A doctor] was a well-trained, skillful and sophisticated practitioner, capable of delicate operations. A cataract operation, which restored sight by delicately moving an opaque lens within the eye, was routine in 1000 B.C. in India.

    "Early [doctors] also repaired hernias, delivered babies by Caesarian section and performed such complex skin-grafting operations as rhinoplasty—the reconstruction of the nose by taking skin from the cheek. . . . The Greeks and Romans were also skilled in surgery. But with the disintegration of the Roman Empire . . . the Dark Ages encompassed Europe." For reasons like the reaction to the correlation data on scurvy, genuine knowledge was suppressed.

    But even then Dr. Guy de Chauliac (c. 1300-1368) [physician to Pope Clement VI] . . . practiced serious surgery . . . removal of cancerous growths [and did] operations on hernias and cataracts."

    And Dr. "de Chauliac's [1363] treatise on surgery . . . served as a definitive text for hundreds of years."—Russel V. Lee, Sarel Eimerl and the Editors of LIFE, The Physician, Life Science Library Series (New York: Time Inc, 1967), pp 24, 32.


                                                 Illustration from de Chauliac's
                                                      Treatise on Surgery


    From A Text on Plastic Surgery - 1597 - by Dr. Gaspare Tagliacozzi


    FOUR STAGES IN RECONSTRUCTION OF A NOSE - 1597

             1. From arm of noseless patient, partly remove a flap of skin.
             2. Graft flap onto face; install harness to hold arm rigid so blood from arm
                  can continue to nourish the flap.
              3. Allow about 14 days, cut flap from arm.
              4. Bandage face to allow healing for 14 additional days prior to beginning
                  shaping formless skin into new nose.

    This 1597 textbook data from that violent dueling era when such plastic surgery was much needed helps refute the malicious hate-filled myths contradicting doctors' knowledge.

    Dr. Mondino de Luzzi (1270-1326)
    Anatomy Teacher
    Author of Text on Dissection
    Woodcut from de Luzzi's book Anathomia
    Showing Him on His Thronelike Chair
    While Assistant Reveals Body Organs Being Taught


    "Surgeons [in the Roman era had] devised ingenious forceps and tweezers and other instruments for special operations. They extracted goiters, tonsils, and stones, apparently with considerable success. In the Caesarean operation (said to have been performed first at the birth of Julius Caesar [100 BC]) they developed a method for delivering babies who could not be born in the normal way.

    "Surgeons were regularly attached to the Roman legions, and hospitals first appeared as establishments for the treatment of sick and wounded Roman soldiers. The cities then set up hospitals for civilians. These hospitals were the first public institutions of the sort in the history of Europe."—Crane Brinton, John B. Christopher, and Robert Lee Wolff, A History of Civilization: Volume I: Prehistory to 1715 (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc, 1955), p 113.

    "Galen of Pergamum (c. 129-99 [B.C.E.] perhaps the last great doctor of antiquity to engage in dissection, wrote voluminously; some of his many essays remained standard medical handbooks to A.D. 1800," says Prof. Chester G. Starr, A History of the Ancient World, 3rd ed (Oxford Univ Press, 1983), p 594.


    An "Arab medical text called the Royal Book, written in the tenth century by Ali Ibn al-Abbas, physician to the Caliph in Baghdad . . . contained twenty chapters on subjects including urinalysis, dietetics, gynæcology, surgery and the capillary system. . . . By the 12th century the [Medical] School at Salerno [Italy] was able to use this type of diagnosis to identify no less than nineteen different diseases. . . . The medical course consisted of three years' general study . . . four more on medicine, with a final eighth year . . . as an intern."—James Burke, Connections (Boston: Little, Brown and Co, 1978), p 125.


    RESPECT NEEDED FOR DOCTORS' ACCOMPLISHMENTS
    WHEN NOT OBSTRUCTED BY POLITICIANS

    • Deaths from infectious diseases declined markedly in the United States during the 20th century, contributing to a sharp drop in infant and child mortality and a >30-year average increase in life expectancy. In 1900, 30% of children died before their fifth birthdays; in 1997, only 1% died.

    • In 1900, the three leading causes of death were pneumonia, tuberculosis (TB), and diarrhea and enteritis, which (together with diphtheria) were responsible for one third of all deaths. Of these deaths, 40% were deaths of children aged <5 years. Today, heart disease and cancers account for almost three quarters of deaths, with 5% attributable to pneumonia, flu, and HIV infection.

    • One of the most devastating epidemics in human history occurred during the 20th century. The 1918 flu pandemic killed 20 million people, including 500,000 persons in the United States, in less than 1 year.

    • Chlorination and other treatments of drinking water began in the early 1900s and became widespread 20th century public health practices, decreasing the incidence of cholera, typhoid, and other waterborne diseases.

    • In 1900, TB killed 200 out of every 100,000 Americans, most of them residents of urban areas. In 1940 (before the introduction of antibiotic therapy) TB remained a leading killer, but the death rate had decreased to 60 per 100,000 persons

    • Malaria, which had been endemic throughout the U.S. Sunbelt (southeastern and south-central states), was reduced to negligible levels by the late 1940s through regional mosquito control programs.

    • The last major rat-associated outbreak of plague in the United States occurred in 1924-1925 in Los Angeles. This outbreak included the last identified instance of human-to-human transmission of plague (through inhalation of infectious respiratory droplets from coughing patients) in this country.

    • By 1900, 40 states had established public health departments, and the first county health departments were established in 1908. Between the 1930s and 1950s, state and local health departments made substantial progress in disease prevention activities including sewage disposal, water treatment, food safety, and public education on hygienic practices (e.g., food handling and handwashing).

    • Over the past 50 years, strategic vaccination campaigns have virtually eliminated diseases that used to be common in the United States -- including diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, poliomyelitis, smallpox, measles, mumps, rubella, and Haemophilus influenzae type b meningitis.

    • A federally coordinated vaccination program was established through the passage of the Vaccination Assistance Act of 1962. A landmark piece of legislation, this Act has been continuously renewed and now supports the purchase and administration of a full range of childhood vaccines.

    • Smallpox was eradicated in 1980, after an 11-year campaign (1967-1977) involving 33 nations, approximately one decade after it had been eliminated from the United States and the rest of the Western Hemisphere. Polio and dracunculiasis may be eradicated by 2000.

    • Antibiotics have been in civilian use for 57 years as of 1999, and have saved the lives and health of hundreds of thousands of persons with infections such as streptococcal and staphylococcal infections, gonorrhea, and syphilis.

    • Source For The Above List: CDC, 30 July 1999

    RESPECT NEEDED FOR DOCTORS' FINDINGS ON CRIME

    Crime is an issue in society. Laymen nowadays don't see doctors on thrones! And laymen apparently feel, and some have the lying audacity to say, doctors have not researched the subject of crime! Laymen certainly never show any respect, never say --
    'are there are any medical studies on WHO does the crime? Maybe not 100%, but knowing, perhaps enough to do a 90% reduction in crime would help!!'

    Have you noticed any such respect? Do any laymen ever ask that? Have you ever heard any laymen ask that? Have you ever seen any letters to the editor on that? The mouths on tv and radio talk shows, does this question come up? If you were under oath in court, can you truthfully state names, dates, places—this person _______ asked about/cited/referred to medical studies of WHO does 90% of crime? He said, 'I remember from grade school, doctors studied the WHO on scurvy; soon they studied the WHO on crime—and published their results'? Can you testify you have heard/seen such? Hah!!

    Am I allowed to say: this correlation data / cause-oriented thought pattern—due to lack of respect for professional correlation / causation analysis techniques—is not on laymens' minds. Correlation-causation analysis is not on their minds, so when some big newsworthy crime occurs, you do not hear people saying, 'the 90% factor in that is ________. So those perpetrators are probably in that 90% group.'

    No, ask a layman, especially a media mouth or politican, you'll likely find they are all authorities on the subject—authorities in their own dullard minds—but they never read, much less studied, even one medical journal article on the subject, ever. Indeed, they have no idea that there even are studies, or what the 90% factor is. And have a record of not believing it when told. (Read Dr. Solly's sad lament on this in 1856). But they are still legends in their own minds on what to do about the big incident! and the routine daily ones!! about crime in general! And they dare to write whole columns, do programs, or give speeches parading their nonsense, disrespect, ignorance.

    Exception: To such oafs and dullards, nonsense lay correlations ARE acceptable. Every nonsense lay correlation is instantly widely disseminated without the slightest informed challenge. To them, any lay correlation is ok—crime is caused by the Internet, TV, pornography, moral decline, violence in movies, guns, swords, unstated social factors, whatever. You name it! (Let's call those the 2% correlations—the uneducated people's two cents worth!!) To the oafs and dullards, a 2% correlation is accepted over the 90% correlation, every time!! The public's widespread doing of this, is conclusive proof of the widespread miseducation, ignorance and lack of respect for pure science, genuine data analysis and the repeated medical-statistical correlation - causation evidence.

    Did you hear the anecdote about the layman—a media writer or politician, I forget—who denounced statistics, pure science type correlations?
    He/she never took a statistics class, but knew all about them—a legend in his own mind.

    'A sample is not enough,' he said. 'A factor has to be 100% or it's not true.' 'You have to know the why, doc.' 'Nothing less is good enough for me.' 'Everybody who uses statistics without 100% correlation, causation, and knowing the why, they are all wrong.'

    Luckily for society lest we suffer from more writings, laws, or decisions by this paranoid delusional (delusions of grandeur) writer/official, his psychiatrist cured him.

    How? you ask.

    The next blood test that SOB needed, well, less than a 100% sample wouldn't be good enough for him/her, so 'take it all, nurse—take 100%.' :-)

    That dullard, but that dullard ONLY, got the point. :)

    Which is more likely to be accurate—a 90% correlation studied by numerous independent observers and analysts for almost two centuries (1836 to present); or the various spur-of-the-moment instant correlations (nay, mere allegations) mouthed off whenever some big crime incident is chosen by the media for publicity? and paper-selling purposes? (Remember, the media picks and chooses what it covers; it has a pattern of emphasizing sensational, action news over analytical, background, news).


    TRUE or FALSE:
    Generally speaking, crime boils down to
    s______s victimizing other s______s.


    Have doctors studied what causes crime? Have you figured out the answer yet?

    Of course they did! 1830's - 1870's, and found the answer by then.

    Of course doctors applied the above-described statistical analysis process to studying WHO does crimes. Likewise with suicide, alcoholism, lung cancer, and of course, numerous other matters as well. It would be inconceivable to any non-hate-filled rational person, that doctors wouldn't study such things!!

    Unfortunately, rational persons are clearly in short supply in the media, and government, on these subjects. The people who study and cite the 90% correlation, having tried 1790's - 1940's to educate the public, and received (generally but not always) only contempt for their efforts, are not heard from in the media. Their words of wisdom on crime causation are conspicuously absent nowadays even (especially?) when widely publicized crime incidents occur.

    The media generally didn't want to print what doctors' said. And on the rare occasions that what doctors said was printed, the public generally didn't believe it or act on it! (We'll get to an example of some of the rare exceptions below).

    The media, politicians, and public prefer the 2% correlations over the genuine 90% correlation. In view of that public contempt for genuine knowledge, crime will continue, and alcoholism, suicide, lung cancer—anything and everything on which the 90% factor is spit on by the public, egged on by persons with axes to grind.

    The public prefers punishment to prevention, they intend it, so assuredly will have plenty of crime incidents to punish!! And they love it on "Action News"!!

    Re crime, a number of people reported the results as to WHO—which specific identifiable population group—commits 90% of the crimes: doctors and medical data analysts including but not limited to Alcott (1836); Jackson (1854); Hodgkin (1857); Buckley and Trask (1860); Jackson, Salisbury, Baker (1889); Ellis (1901); Lindsay (1914); Torrance (1916); Brum (1924); Danis (1925); Healy and Bonner (1926); Crane, Dawson, Pollock and Shaw (1931); Wood (1944); Doughty (1989); McKinney (1991), etc. (Others, e.g., Hayes, et al., did likewise on alcoholism; Leistikow, et al., on suicide.) Bottom line: The 90% factor in crime has remained the same across all the societal changes 1854 to present.

    Just as with scurvy, all other variables have been ruled out. (Doctors knew how to do that long ago, as our website refuting alleged variables allegedly causing cancer in the 1920's shows.) The same data analysis is true with crime. All other alleged variables—the 2% correlations (the Internet, guns, TV, violent movies, pornography, milk, etc.)—have been proven irrelevant, wrong, false, a myth. But the latter are the only ones the public hears!! and loves to hear on "Action News"!!

    In addition, notice that others in the media—despite the existence of voluminous data on the subjects herein cited, being published for ± a century, offer up a different malicious lie—the claim that 'nobody knows' the causation process _______.

    When you read such a media writer or official claim that 'nobody knows' _______, recognize that the writer is

  • either insane (suffering from delusions of grandeur that he or she has interviewed all the billions of people, did proper interviewing, understood what he/she was being told, took good notes, or did some other equivalent thorough and analytical process so as to know what billions of people do or do not know on the _______ subject), or

  • a murderer like Julius Streicher, the Nazi writer hanged at Nuremberg after World War II for publishing media-style false claims that led to many deaths.

  • (The legal basis for hanging such a publisher, writer, or official for his/her writing or words, is that said words aid and abet, are accessory to, deaths—just as surely as, e.g., a 'stick-up note' aids and abets / is accessory to, e.g., a bank robbery.)

    Big problem: The public and governments do not find the 90% factor in crime to be politically acceptable to act on. Not in 1854 under politicians with the beliefs and political parties of that era. Not in 1901 with changed ones, changed in other aspects but not in rejecting acting on the 90% factor. Not in 1931. Not in 1944. Not in 1989 nor 1991. Not now.

    Of course, a lot of people suffer, get murdered, robbed, raped, etc. But what is more important to a politician, preventing crime, or offending the prominent people who want the 90% factor to continue? What is more important to the average member of the public—their pet 2% correlation, or the real 90% correlation?!! Listen to them; how often do they cite the medical data on crime causation? If you admit, be honest now, 'essentially never,' you are right.

    So politicians resort to demagoguery or worse. They denounce the weapons that the perps with the 90% factor use, even though those weapons have changed since 1854! But it is easy to denounce the weapons!! It's is also easy to denounce the people who commit the crimes. Never mind, the underlying 90% medically-verified factor!! Let's yell for more prisons (politicians' buddies can make millions building them!!) Or let's yell for capital punishment. Of course, nobody says, let's do it on those who perpetuate the 90% factor! That's too reasonable. that would solve the problem!! -- a real crime killer!!

    To most people, it's much better to have crime continue, rather than offend the prominent people who want the 90% factor continued. Just as serving fruits and vegetables to soldiers and sailors violated officers' rights, so eliminating the 90% factor violates peoples' rights. (I've been told that! vehemently told that!) And, what would there be to show on "ACTION NEWS"?!

    Oh yes, the public shares some responsibility. The public likes "ACTION NEWS." And has a vehement hatred of "analytical news," talking heads, doctors citing the 90% factor. Did I tell you? Doctors tried, and tried repeatedly, 1850's - 1940's, in nationwide distributions of literature, to get the public to act on the 90% factor in crime.
    'Hey people, _________ is the 90% factor in crime. Let's issue an order, get rid of it. And so prevent crime from occurring in the first place.'
    The people named above did that, said this concept. Tell me, what do you think the public response was?
    *Action on the 90% factor (______) including having orders issued dealing with it (like the orders on issuing limes)?

    or

    *Telling doctors to sit down and shut up; they're offending too many people, they're advocating violating people's rights by advocating eliminating ______.

    You know the answer. Uneducated and under-educated people like watching "ACTION NEWS." Crime news is fun to watch! Watch distraught crime victims is fun! Denouncing the perps is invigorating! Having somebody to look down on, elevates the viewer in his own eyes!! Jailing or executing perps is fun!! Statistical data prevention analysis is boring, boring, boring. (The public prefers punishment to prevention, so assuredly will have plenty of incidents to punish!!)

    Doctors just want to make the news boring. And besides, all doctors who say they know the 90% factor are liars. Nobody knows a 90% factor in crime!! (But all the 2% correlations are gospel!!) You don't believe me? Re-read the test above. Ask people if they even believe that anyone knows the 90% factor in any of those areas! And if you find a rare person who says 'yes,' next say to that person, 'tell me what that 90% factor is: _______.' (To pass the test, the correct answer must be given to 3 of the 4 test questions!!

    It violated officers' rights in the 1730's - 1790's to let common soldiers and sailors have the same type rations (fruits, vegetables, fruit juice). People REALLY believed that.

    Don't go looking down your nose at them as though they are the only ignorant louts!

    People are still like that. There are people who still believe what those 1730's people believed. It violates rights to deal with the 90% factor in scurvy. And in crime.

    And many, tens of millions, of people still believe, on the 90% factor in crime, it violates people's rights to deal with the underlying factor. Better to let 90% too much crime occur, and punish—than to prevent crime, close jails, lay-off guards, cops, prosecutors, judges. Better to have more victims, than to prevent crime from occurring in the first place. Better to advocate "victim's rights," than to prevent crime by dealing with the 90% factor ________. Better to advocate "scurvy victims' rights" than to violate officers' rights, and prevent the scurvy in the first place.

    You see, the 90% factor is not good enough to act on when doctors cite it. On the other hand, if the town skid row drunk says there is a 2% correlation in something, he has instant credibility. He says, somebody fired a gun 100 times. 98 of the bullets did not kill anybody, but one or two did. That 1 - 2%, that's enough statistics, that's enough correlation to act. So says the town drunk, or some media mouth or newscaster, or bribed politician. When the town drunk says crime is caused by the Internet, tv violence, pornography, green cheese, 'Big Hollywood,' or milk, that's gospel! But when doctors for generations who have actually studied the subject for a century cite a 90% correlation in crime, that's not good enough.

    Another scam goes along these lines. Cause A causes Effects B, C, D, and E. The scam artist picks out one item among the B, C, D, and E, and pretends that THAT is the cause. Example: Pretending that C causes B, D, and E.
    On auto crashes, the public would not be scammed. We know that drunk driving causes car crashes, that car crashes cause broken arms, broken legs, lacerations, closed-head injuries, etc.   We would not be scammed into thinking that, e.g., broken legs cause broken arms! The scam works only on matters on which the public is not educated.
    Here is another way the pro-tobacco scam functions to undermine a truth. For example, you say "tobacco causes effect 'A'."   The scammer / hater immediately rants, "you've just said, tobacco ALWAYS causes effect 'A.'"   Or, "you've just said, tobacco is the SOLE CAUSE of effect 'A.' No, you merely said, "tobacco causes effect 'A'."
    Had you said, "drunk driving causes car crashes," or "car crashes cause broken bones," nobody would have ranted, "you said, drunk driving ALWAYS causes car crashes," or "you said, car crashes ALWAYS cause broken bones."   Or ranted, "you've just said, drunk driving is the SOLE CAUSE of car crashes," or, "you've just said, car crashes are the SOLE CAUSE of broken bones."   No, on such matters, the scammers / hater recognize the grammar of sentence structure and know that their lying scam won't work in THAT case. But on tobacco, on which the public is un / under-educated due to the "tobacco taboo," censorship, the scam / hateranting can indeed deceive the un/under-educated.
    This website helps you recognize pusher hate / scams, by educating you on (a) statistics, and (b) pusher / hater scams, e.g., their twisting, distorting, misrepresenting, what is said.

    The media often provide publish notions that all competent researchers recognize as scams. Professionals understand the need to correct identify variables, discard confounding factors, seek the convergence of evidence. For a media scam contrary to this proper methodology, take the example of crime, 90% of which is by a specific defined group. Media pundits typically cite knowingly false claims, factors common to both criminals and non-criminals. Honest professionals know that studying different behavior/effects, one must look for and study the differences (causation process).

    A classic example of an exposé of the scam of citing a non-variable in the crime-causation field, was published at the turn of the twentieth century. This exposé was in the book by Charles Goring, M.D., The English Convict: A Statistical Study (Darling and Son, Ltd, for H.M. Stationery Office, 1913). Goring was debunking mythology of that era, phony assertions about criminals purporting to explain causation, but which included factors common to non-criminals!! Including common factors, vs focusing on the actual variables, is an obvious methodology error. But it was scamming people then, so Dr. Goring took aim at it! Such an error is obviously a "fatal flaw" in methodology! as competent honest researchers well know! But watch, you will see this scam perpetrated over and over again, even yet. The scammers / haters (media, politicians, etc.) are confident that most people are so un/under-educated compared to a century ago, that they will not recognize that the 'citing-a-common-factor-vs-a-variable' scam was detected, exposed, debunked as long ago as 1913.

    In this dumbed down society, vast numbers of Americans are simply incapable of comprehending statistical proofs. Such ignorant people use "anecdotes" [single incidents, for example] instead! Such ignorant people actually deem "anecdote" as "not only proof [but] even better proof than social science research and quantitative data [e.g., "statistical evidence"] They do this despite having supposedly learned but obviously having forgotten even "the most basic strictures of research design and accepted scholarly interpretation [analysis]," says Tim Wise, "The Oprah Effect: Black Success, White Denial and the Reality of Racism" (28 July 2006) (an analysis of statistics in another context, but making the case for statistics, in the face of even alleged college graduates apparently unable to comprehend the basics of statistics' meaning and import).

    The book by Darrel Huff, M.A., How to Lie with Statistics (1954) provides insight on how the ignorant masses can be deceived: "Many a statistic is false on its face. It gets by [the ignorant masses] only because the magic of numbers brings about the suspension of common sense," p 138. Pushers know this, take advantage, cause the tobacco holocaust.

    For background on the dumbing down of America such that even numbers of "educated" people (not the mention the poorly educated) cannot comprehend statistical and similar data, see, e.g.,
    Manuel Valenzuela, "The Dumbing Down of America" (2 January 2007), who cites "the dumbing down of America, the methodical destruction and purposeful elimination of the means by which a society educates and enlightens itself."
    Note that the U.S. "educational system was twisted into a test taking industry that is careful, above all, not to teach children how to think," says Prof. David Michael Green, in "One day you’re gonna wake up, America" (4 May 2007) (Green is Professor of Political Science at Hofstra University, New York).
    Note "the huge gap between funding for military ventures and US public education," says Emily Spence, "We Can't Get No Educashion: A Critique Of US Public Schools" (26 August 2007).
    A lament of America's dumbing down is given by Chris Hedges, M.Th., in "America the Illiterate" (November 2008), citing loss of emphasis on reading and in-depth thought, and instead mere images and superficiality.
    America being dumbed down has causes, see details by, e.g., Susan Jacoby, The Age of American Unreason: Dumbing Down and the Future of Democracy (London: Old Street Publishing, 2008), and George Monbiot, "Why Morons Succeed in US Politics" (The Guardian, 28 October 2008). See also Prof. Richard Hofstadter, Anti-Intellectualism in American Life (1963).
    Paul Craig Roberts, Ph.D., "Polls Show Many Americans are Simply Dumber Than Bush" (29 January 2006), who says that "Half of the US population is incapable of acquiring, processing and understanding information. . . . half of the American population is unable to draw a rational conclusion from unambiguous facts. . . . the inability of half of the US population to acquire and understand information are far larger threats to Americans than terrorism."
    For more on this subject, see our 1914 Edison Memo Background Site.

    Some anti-medical statistics rants are of course due to additional or other reasons, e.g.,

  • (a) mental disorder, delusions of grandeur that some unlearned oaf who's never taken a class on the subject, knows more than professors and researchers with decades of experience applying the centuries of statistical methodology, and

  • (b) malicious media types or special interests intending to harm or kill their victims.
  • Statisticians are aware of the scam of misusing statistics. There are terms for that fraud, the citing of "spurious dependence" or "spurious correlation" due to an unlisted "lurking variable."

    A "false correlation that [a lurking variable] causes is called spurious correlation."

    And "the third variable, which . . . is actually causing the observed correlation between [other factors] is referred to as a lurking variable."


    What is the result?

    "Two characteristics may appear to be strongly related." Why? "due to the common influence of a third factor [the "lurking variable"] not included in the study. In such cases the dependence is called a spurious dependence.

    “For instance, if a sample of individuals is classified [as] to whether or not they are heavy drinkers and [have] respiratory trouble, we would probably find a high [correlation] and conclude that a strong statistical association existings between drinking habit and lung condition.

    “But the reason for the [statistical] association may be that most heavy drinkers are also heavy smokers and [that] is a direct cause of respiratory trouble.”—Richard A. Johnson and Gouri K. Bhattacharyya (Univ of Wisconsin, Madison), Statistics: Principles and Methods, 3rd ed. (John Wiley and Sons, Inc, 1987, 1992, 1996), pp 103 and 558.


    For example, in dealing with “all the [people] who share many characteristics [the statistical method includes to] pinpoint the single characteristic they don't share. This is how [to] isolate the true impact. . . . This is how the impact of that [factor]—and, eventually, of every [factor]—becomes manifest,” p 162, say Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, in Freakonomics (New York: William Morrow, 2005). Note that such statistical analysis is carefully designed to pinpoint “the difference between causality . . . and correlation,” p 163. It is crucial, essential, vital to have “a skilled practitioner [who] can use it [statistical data] to tell how meaningful a correlation is—and maybe even tell whether that correlation does indicate a causal relationship,” p 163.
    “After all, there are several ways in which two variables can be correlated. X can cause Y; Y can cause X; or it may be that some other factor is causing both X and Y. A [statistical raw datum] can't tell you whether it snows because it's cold, whether it's cold because it snows, or if the two just happen to go together,” p 163 [or if both cold and snow caused by some other third or other factor].
    Of course, proper analysis is by impartial analysts, not by paid lobbyists! Does smoking cause cancer, and does cancer cause smoking?! Honest doctors see the smoking-cancer statistics, and to save lives, say the true answer: smoking causes cancer. But tobacco lobbyists historically pretended differently! why? so as to kill their targets.
    Tobacco pushers continue their genocidal ways. Notice when your receive propaganda messages (sometimes disguised as jokes) ridiculing safety, statistics, or health.

    You see this scam repeatedly, e.g., linking alcoholism and suicide though the real factor is smoking; linking alcoholism and crime though the real factor is tobacco use; linking "stress" and some tobacco-caused condition; etc., etc.

    Another fraud or scam is to deliberately cite irrelevant factors, to distract attention off the genuine long established facts. Fraudsters cite factors for which no studies, much less, evidence, exists showing relevance, i.e., genuine cause and effect relationship. They may seem to be just mouthing off, but this process is well-reharsed, of long standing, done maliciously to distract attention off the relevant factors, the genuine cause and effect factors. Their intent by so doing is to cause the foreseeable natural and probable consequences, i.e., harm or death.

    We cannot leave you with the impression that all media personalities and politicians are horribly corrupt and bribed, and would rather see school children shot up, or old widow ladies robbed, raped, mutilated, and murdered, than offend the prominent people with a vested interest in keeping the 90% factor.

    We can't leave you with the impression that the media and politicians are ALL corrupt. So we have to admit that occasionally, rarely, since 1836, there has been a rare media writer or politician who said, let's act on the medical data, like was done with scurvy.

    For example, in 1909, three-term Michigan Governor Fred M. Warner did that, and a crime prevention act was passed to abolish the 90% factor in crime -- offending a lot of people!!

             Tell me, what happened?

            A. __ Warner was out of office in months, can't be re-elected quoting doctors' studies!
            B. __ The law was/is violated by those interested in maintaining the 90% factor.
            C. __ Prosecutors see looming unemployment, so refuse to enforce it.
            D. __ Advocacy of enforcement gets the officer in trouble.
            E. __ The number of times the law has been enforced, 1909 to present, is zero.
            F. __ The crime prevention law looks good on the books, so nobody dares repeal it!
            G. __ All the above.

             Gee, we wonder if you can Guess the Good answer!


              If you believe that we have misrepresented the extent of corruption in the media and among politicians on the subject, and IF you can provide names, dates, places, quotes, of media and politicians who have said, 'let's deal with these matters pursuant to the medical writings listed at the websites here, or their equivalent' and/or exposed the inaction and/or misrepresentations of colleagues on the subject, and if those numbers of media and politicians constitute a reasonably high percentage of the total number 1836 to present, and we verify your allegation of same, then we will retract/revise pursuant to your input.


             If on the other hand, you have little or no evidence showing that the allegations here are untrue, then here is an alternative request. If you have suggestions for getting action in support of the medical data on the 90% factor in crime -- the known WHO does it, the identifiable population base who does it, please write to us.

             If you deny that the 90% factor is known, deny it has been published time and time again, DON'T write to me. We own copies of the material!! and can't deny we've seen it! And have seen the medical explanations of why the 90% factor is operative.

             (Like the discovery of vitamin C, it took a while, but doctors found WHY the 90% factor is operative in crime, and published that data too! Repeatedly and voluminously! in medical journal after medical. The name of the group that commits 90% of the crime 1836-present, is _______. And here's WHY it is true. And doctors got the same disrespect and "shut-up" attitude from the public as for the earlier bare 90% factor data, like centuries before, on scurvy).

              And there is the other denunciation: you are not saying it right! Your method of saying it is all wrong!! I've heard that one too!

              Is it just us who can't say it right?! Apparently, universally, across the board, everyone who ever said the 90% factor, the 90% group, said it wrong!! All the authors 1836 on, were incompetent at writing, incompetent at explaining the 90% factor. . . . . QUESTION: Can we, after a century and a half, conclude,

    'it appears that the public enjoys seeing the suffering of crime victims, vicariously revels in the thrill and spectacle of crime incidents, wants perps to look down on so they can feel superior, does not want the crime problem solved, or they would have agreed that SOME ONE of all the various authors who cited the 90% group doing the crime, said it right—at least ONCE since 1836?!!'

    PRACTICE SELF-TEST

             Hint: the name of the group that gets scurvy is _______. (Example answer to fill in the blank: Generally speaking, Non-fruit/vegetable eaters).

             (For more practice, insert the medical fact that differentiates the group—generally speaking—from the others. In other words, name the group.)

             The name of the group that commits about 90% of the crime is _____.
             The name of the group that does about 90% of the alcoholism is _____.
             The name of the group that commits about 90% of the suicide is _____.
             The name of the group that gets about 90% of the lung cancer is _____.


             Those who don't disrespect statistics and doctors' analyses, may well say: We believe you that the 90% factor is known. Thank you. But you are one person. Millions need to know!! for the knowledge to be acted on.

             But the schools don't teach it. (At least, not since 1880's-1915, when it was taught for a short time, but it's too controversial!! so kick that fact—like Gov. Warner—out. Kick him out of office. Kick this medical fact out of the schools! So of course you don't know the answer. The schools don't teach respect for medical methods of data analysis, don't teach about the medical journals that report medical facts, and don't teach the medical facts themselves! Instead disinformation types spread blame elsewhere [including on doctors and psychiatrists] while carefully avoiding mention of the tobacco role.)

             Repeat, if you have suggestions for getting the medical data on the 90% factor in crime—the known WHO does it, the identifiable population base who does it—acted on, write to me. Others, DON'T.
     

     


     

    FOR MORE INFORMATION 

    Medical History Websites
    Andy Walker's History of Medicine. This site includes activities on Roman Public Health, Renaissance Medicine, Women in Medicine, Nursing and Nightingale, Louis Pasteur and Edward Jenner.
    History of Medicine at learnstuff.com. This site gives background on societies and cultures having practiced forms of medicine for thousands of years.
    Karolinska Institutet Library (KIB). This is the largest medical library in Sweden. It covers history of Biomedicine. Subjects covered include Indigenous Cultures, Mesopotamian Medicine, Ancient Egyptian Medicine, Traditional Chinese Medicine, Traditional Indian Medicine, Classical Islamic Biomedicine, Western Biomedicine and the History of Diseases.
    History of Medicine Through Time. This site contains information, links and activities about medical history, changes and developments from ancient times onwards. Quick tests and revision activities can be found in each unit. The website covers Egyptian Medicine, Greek Medicine, Roman Medicine, Medieval and Early Modern Europe, Oriental and Chinese Medicine, the works of Andreas Vesalius and Infectious Disease.
    Educational Cartoons on History of Medicine. Subjects covered include Anaesthetics, Antiseptics, Bacteria, Bubonic Plague, Cancer, Cholera, Homeopathy, Influenza, Surgery and Vaccination.

    For data on medical self-evaluation statistics, see, e.g., Matthew Herper, "Ideas & Opinions: The Most Powerful Doctor You Never Heard Of" (Forbes, 27 September 2010).

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