Two doctors meet for lunch in the hospital cafeteria. Jan is an old hand, crusty, and a bit intolerant of silliness. Jamie is a new intern, just out of university. They’ve been paired together for work, and thus, for lunches. As they sit down, Jamie feels the glow of excitement of becoming a doctor.
“I can hardly wait to start curing people,” Jamie gushes.
“Cure? What do you mean by ‘cure’?” Jan asks sternly.
“You know, to help them get rid of their diseases. To free people from disease.” Jamie is speaking rapidly, enthusiastically.
“Maybe you should check a dictionary.” Jan replies curtly.
“What?“
“Well, if you check your dictionary, you might be surprised at the meaning of ‘cure’. You might take note of ‘disease’ as well. If illness is what the patient has, and disease is our classification system used in diagnosis, not every illness can be diagnosed as a disease. And cured? That’s a real challenge.“
Jamie types into the phone for a moment and reads, triumphantly: “Cure: ‘the act of making someone healthy again after an illness‘ according to Webster.”
“Curing happens after the illness is gone?,” Jan challenges, “I thought that was healing?Doesn’t curing happen when the patient is sick? Are you sure that’s what Webster says?“
“Hmm”, Jamie is flustered, “Google shows the definition from Webster’s Learner’s Dictionary first“, she mumbles a bit, scrolling down.
“So, first we give learners a wrong definition for cure? Do they correct it when people learn better English?” Jan smiles sarcastically. “By the way, we don’t make patients healthy, we treat them for serious medical conditions, and send them home, to heal.“
“Here,” replies Jamie, attempting to move the conversation in a positive direction, “it says… well, it’s complicated.“
Jan provides a bit of support, “There are lots of different meanings for the word cure, in different situations. But you said you want to get busy ‘curing people’. Is there a definition like that?“
“It says ‘to stop (a disease) by using drugs or other medical treatments‘, that’s what I meant.” Jan smiles, then adds, shaking her head, “then it says, once more, ‘the act of making someone healthy again after an illness‘“.
“Curing someone is stopping their disease. That makes some sense, although they’ve switched from illness to disease. Do we cure the illness, or the disease, or the patient, the ‘someone’? What if we stop the disease, but doesn’t make them healthy, is it a cure?” Jan queries.
“You’re just getting technical now, being pedantic.” Jamie grins.
“We could look pedantic up too, but let’s stick to cure. The first definition is simply nonsense- healing after an illness doesn’t cure an illness. Healing is part of growth, always active, before, during and after an illness. Healing progresses irrespective of the illness or disease, also irrespective of the cause, because healing repairs injuries, not diseases. The other definition is OK, except for the medicine restriction.“
“Restriction?” Jamie seems puzzled.
“It is, of course, possible to cure an illness, without a ‘drug or medical treatment‘,” Jan taps a knife on the tray for emphasis. “That definition is clearly medical chauvinism.”
“Medical chauvinism? Like, give me an example!” Jamie challenges.
“How do you cure simple dehydration? ” Jan asks, smiling.
“Hmm…technically, dehydration is cured with water – I guess it’s not a medicine, nor a medical treatment, except, when you are dehydrated, then it’s a medical treatment!” Jamie responds confusedly.
“Well, that’s nonsense. What if you are only partly dehydrated, or undiagnosed dehydration – is it a medicine? What if you self diagnose and self-treat, is it a medicine? Is it a medicine if a doctor prescribes it, or if a medical person recommends it, but otherwise not? Is a bottle of water a medicine if it’s sold in a pharmacy with a label saying “can be used to prevent, treat, or cure dehydration‘, but not if it’s sold in a health food store, with a label saying ‘pure, healthy, spring water?‘ Lots of illnesses are cured without medicines. In addition, although many are cured by the presence of something, others by an absence, or by removing the cause. Obesity, arsenic poisoning, and shin splints are not cured by ‘something’, they are cured by ‘not something’.“
Jan continues, “Of course dehydration diagnosed is usually not a disease – it’s often a symptom of another problem like diarrhea and vomiting, so giving water as a medicine doesn’t address the cause. But it does address a present problem. Severe ongoing dehydration caused by lack of water is rare, because our bodies tell us when we need to drink water. Simple dehydration is normally cured by health, before any diagnosis is required.“
“An illness can be cured by health?” Jamie looks surprised.
“By actions that make you healthier. Lots of things are essential to health. If you don’t get them, or don’t get enough, you get sick – if you get too much, you get sick. Health is about balance and harmony, the ability to maintain and make use of the balances of life.” Jan replies, pausing to collect his thoughts, “Maybe we need a better dictionary.“
“I’ll check Oxford,” Jamie proposes, thumbing the phone again, “The Oxford Dictionary for English Learners: ‘to make a person or an animal healthy again after an illness’, duh – almost exactly the same as Webster’s. Why do dictionaries think curing happens ‘after’ the illness?“
“Dictionaries don’t create language – they attempt to tell us how language is used. Writing a learner’s dictionary is more difficult. They need to simplify, which can easily lead to simple errors. What does the full definition say?” Jan asks.
“I’m reading it, but I’m not liking it,” Jamie replies, “It says ‘relieve (a person or animal) of the symptoms of a disease or condition‘. But, we cure illness, don’t we – not symptoms?“
“There’s often confusion between the symptoms and disease.” Jan pauses, thoughtfully.
Jamie interrupts, “Then it says ”Eliminate (a disease or condition) with medical treatment‘. Oxford also misses cures without medicines. Is there no logical, scientific, medical definition of cure?“
“Well, lunch is almost over – why don’t you check some medical books. Maybe you’ll find a better definition. Let’s talk more about this tomorrow.” Jan picks up the empty dishes and places them on a tray.
But before they leave the cafeteria, Jan has to ask “What do you think ‘cure’ means now?“
“I think cure means to stop the illness,” Jamie replies.
“That’s a good start,” Jan replies, “Let’s see what tomorrow brings.“
Do you know someone who has been cured by a chiropractor? Maybe you, yourself, have been cured by a chiropractor? What happens after a chiropractor cures your illness? You’ve been cured. Your chiropractor cured you. But nobody else cares.
A few weeks ago, I was having coffee with a friend, Dee. After catching up on friends, family, and old co-workers, the topic of chiropractors came up. Dee’s voice changed a bit, and she began “I’ll tell you a story.“
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“About a year ago,” she said quietly,“I went to my doctor because I couldn’t raise my left arm.”
She lifted her arm to about chest level, to demonstrate, and continued, “The shoulder was jammed and painful. When I tried to lift my arm any higher – it was very painful and not possible.“
She continued: “I went to see my doctor. He listened to my problem, and said ‘I could prescribe some anti-inflammatory medicines, but they won’t address the cause. I’d recommend you see a chiropractor.’ “
“I was surprised that a doctor would recommend a chiropractor,” She raised her eyebrows a bit, “When I visited the chiropractor, he manipulated my arm and shoulder, movement was improved, but not perfect. There was much less pain. The chiropractor gave me a series of exercises for my arm and shoulder.“
She concluded with a satisfactory smile, “I did the exercises, over the course of a few weeks. The problem went away.“
I noticed that Dee didn’t say “cure“, she didn’t say “I was cured” or “the problem was cured“, instead she said “it went away“.
I suspect, if I talk to the chiropractor, he wouldn’t say “I cured her” either. Claiming to cure can be dangerous.
And… if she talked to her doctor, a similar waffling phrase “The problem went away” might be used, rather than “The chiropractor was able to cure it.” Any doctor who suggests a chiropractor “cured” someone would risk serious admonishment by their peers.
Was Dee cured? Did the chiropractor cure Dee? Did the doctor’s recommendation cure Dee? These thoughts swirled in my mind, as Dee began again, thoughtfully.
“I think I know what happened,” she continued, “A few weeks before the problem, I was wearing a very tight one-suit. I had to take it off quickly to go to the bathroom. I twisted my shoulder taking it off. At the time, it was just a bit sore and I brushed it off. Gradually, over a few weeks the problem got worse and worse. So I decided to go to the doctor.” She was surprised to learn that the doctor made no attempt to cure her.
Now maybe you’re thinking “but that’s just an anecdote“. After all, it wasn’t a clinical study, it’s just an anecdotal story. Know this. Every cure is a single case.
Every cure is an anecdote.Most clinical studies do not contain a definition of cure, and cannot document a cure if it occurs. Cancer research studies measure the positive effects and negative consequences, or risks of “treatments”. No study of a cancer treatment contains a definition of cured.
What happens after a chiropractic cure? It goes away.
The same thing that happens after any cure. It goes away. The illness goes away and the cure as well.
There are no cured statistics for any disease. If you had a common cold, or the flu, cured by health – “it went away“. Conventional medicine says “There is no cure for the common cold (influenza, measles, etc.)” There are statistics for influenza and measles, for deaths caused by influenza or measles, but none for influenza or measles cured.
If you get a sliver in your hand, and it gets infected, health fights the infection. Usually, “it goes away“, cured by health. If it doesn’t go away, you might visit a doctor, and be prescribed an antibiotic. If the antibiotic cures – the infection “goes away“. If you check the medical reference texts – and the product labels – for your antibiotic, you seldom find the word “cure“. Antibiotics are “treatments” for infections. There is a medical test for an infection cured, the dangerous bacteria is gone. But the word cure is rarely used. There are no statistics for infections cured.
And chiropractors? There are no scientific or medical tests for any medical condition cured by a chiropractor. When a chiropractor cures, the problem “goes away“. Was it cured?
Cured is not defined for frozen shoulder. A doctor might diagnose frozen shoulder, but they can’t diagnose “frozen shoulder cured”. There is no cure documented in current medical texts. WebMD documents Frozen Shoulder – exactly as it was experienced by Dee (except for the bathroom run). WebMD recommends treatments, anti-inflammatory drugs like ibuprofen or aspirin or “a stronger medication“. WebMD says “Your treatment might also include going to a physical therapist for strengthening and stretching exercises to improve your range of motion.” But the word “cure” is not used. WebMD does not suggest visiting a chiropractor.
WebMD does not use the word “cure” for frozen shoulder. The word cure appears once on the WebMD page – in an advertisement offering “Shoulder Joint Pain Cure”, which leads to ads for chiropractors, naturopaths, and even aromatherapists. Can any of them cure?
The Mayo Clinic documents “Frozen shoulder, also known as adhesive capsulitis“. They also suggest a physical therapist – but not a chiropractor. And the word cure is not mentioned. The Mayo Clinic documents symptoms, diseases and conditions, but not cures and not cured cases. What happens after a physical therapist cures a case of frozen shoulder? It disappears. Exactly the same thing that happens after a chiropractor cures one.
No authoritative medical reference documents a cure for frozen shoulder. No authoritative medical reference text documents a cure for any medical condition cured by chiropractors.
Of course there are lots of critics claiming that chiropractors are fake doctors and the practices of chiropractors are pseudoscience. Is there any truth to these claims? Who can we ask? We might ask some major league baseball teams, like the Baltimore Orioles, the Boston Red Sox, New York Mets, and the New York Yankees, or some top level basketball players like Micheal Jordan and Derrick Rose, or football teams like the Dallas Cowboys, the Denver Broncos, the Greenbay Packers, the Miami Dolphins and more, who have chiropractors on staff. These teams, many with values in the billions of dollars – choose to pay chiropractor salaries – for chiropractic results, for chiropractic cures.
What happens after a chiropractor cures a basketball player, or a baseball player? What happens to they cure? It goes away. The medical condition goes away. The person goes back to their life. The sports superstar gets back onto the field of play. But, according to the official medical view, it wasn’t cured by an approved medicine or treatment, so it’s not important. The cure goes away as well. It wasn’t really there. It never happened. Nothing to see here. Look away. Look away.
A New Theory of Cure documents the three basic cures for any medical condition. Frozen shoulder requires two cures – exercise to stretch and transform the shoulder to a healthier state, and healing, aided by exercise, to repair the damage that occurs as a result of the injury and the transformation. The third type of cure – a causal cure, is not needed because frozen shoulder has no ongoing cause creating the injury.
So cures disappear. They “go away“. Undocumented. Their causes are also undocumented. And the patients? They go on with their lives. And the doctors? They go on to the next patient. Nobody cares about the cured once a cure has been accomplished.
Do you know anyone who has been cured by a homeopath? What happens after a homeopath cures your illness? You’ve been cured. You care. Your homeopath cares. Maybe your family cares. But officially, nobody else cares. Officially, homeopathic medicines are “just water.”
What does the science say? We can find homeopathic cures in medical science, but, we need to look beyond treatments. Most clinical studies measure “treatments that don’t cure“. We might want to believe researchers are searching for “cancer cures“. But no. Cancer cured, for example, is not medically defined. We have no test for a case of cancer cured. Of over than 70,000 current and past cancer clinical studies listed at ClinicalTrials.gov, not one contains an accepted, testable, scientific, medical definition of cancer cured that can be used in medical practice. When a clinical trial encounters a cured case – no cure can be recognized. Cancer clinical trials measure treatment benefits, but not cures.
Some clinical trials do contain tests for cured. Some clinical studies of homeopathic treatments find cured patients. What happens after a homeopathic cure is found? It disappears. Over time, it disappears even more. But, let’s look at a simpler disease, warts.
Cure for Warts?
Is there a cure for warts? Conventional medicine has no cure for warts. Tests for warts cured are weak and inconsistent. However – we do have a clinical study that tested for warts cured.
What happened to all of the cures? What happened to the cures from homeopathic treatments? They disappeared. The scientific, peer-reviewed, published research study conclusion simply ignored the cured, stating: “There was no apparent difference between the effects of homoeopathic therapy and placebo in children with common warts under the conditions of this study.” Five cures (16 percent of patients) in the homeopathic treatment arm of the study were ignored. There was no further analysis. The same is true of the cure in the placebo arm of the study. No medical researchers made any attempt to understand the cause of any cure. The cures, the presence and number of cures – were at odds with the study conclusions, apparently at odds with the study goals, so they disappeared.
In the second study, designed – in scientific theory – to test if the results could be replicated, cures were not counted. Cures not part of the study parameters, and thus did not appear in the published results. All cured cases were simply ignored.
What happens after a homeopathic cure? Patients might be cured, but the cures disappear from the medical view. It’s not just warts. Cured is not defined scientifically for any disease cured by homeopathy. Warts cured are not medically defined for any disease cured by homeopathy.
It is possible to cure an infectious disease, and prove it was cured by testing for the infection after treatment. But…. those cases can be cured by an approved medicine. The test for cured is: treat with an approved drug, retest for infection. If the infection is no longer present – it’s a cure. But homeopathic medicines are not approved for infections, so the test is not valid. If an infection is cured by a homeopathic medicine, it doesn’t count.
It’s not just homeopathic cures that disappear. No doctor, clinic, hospital, or medical system COUNTS infections cured by any treatment. Cures are counted in clinical studies – but in actual practice, they aren’t counted. There are no statistics for cured of any disease, so there are no statistics of homeopathic cures. Patients can be cured, but their cures don’t count.
The clinical trial Homeopathic medicinal products for preventing and treating acute respiratory tract infections in children, published in 2018, clearly illustrates the confusion around the word cure in clinical trials. This was a meta-study. Most studies found were excluded due to poor quality or poor fit for analysis. Although the study objectives are to evaluate treatments, the word cure occurs over 80 times in the report.
Cured was defined several different ways, depending on the study being evaluated. The following quotes, from the meta-study illustrate the different functional definitions of cured the researchers encountered.
Cure: defined as the reduction or resolution of symptoms of ARTIs (fever/body temperature, cough, pain, malaise/feeling of illness, rhinorrhoea, etc.) in the short‐ (up to 14 days) and long‐term (up to 3 months).
Cure was defined as no severe persistent fever or pain after 24 hours and no moderate persistent fever or pain after 48 hours.
Cure was defined as a symptom score of zero and a Tympanic Membrane Examination score of zero.
Jacobs 2001 defined cure as no symptoms or a significant reduction in symptoms.
None of the time points for cure were the same across the two studies (Jacobs 2016; Sinha 2012)
Sinha 2012 provided long‐term cure data for day 21 of illness, and Jacobs 2001 for week 6 of illness.
in Jacobs 2001 the cure rate was higher among children receiving homeopathy, while in Sinha 2012 the cure rate was higher in children receiving conventional treatment.
It is interesting that researchers use the word cure but not cured to define the cured state.
It’s clear that there is no independent definition of cured. Cure is defined independently by specific researchers in each study.
We have no scientific definition of cured. Conventional medical bureaucracies have no Theory of Cure. Phrases like long term cure and cure rate have little or nothing to do with the condition of the patient, their disease, or its causes. Use of the word cure, rarely references any present cause of illness. Instead, cure tests measure signs and symptoms – consequences of illness.
Most clinical trials of homeopathy measure treatments that do not cure. This is the standard for almost all clinical trials. Cured is rarely defined and cannot be tested. We, for example, research into Homeopathy for treatment of irritable bowel syndrome. Cured is not defined for irritable bowel syndrome. If a cure occurs – it cannot be recognized and thus cannot be documented. Cures, when they occur, disappear. They are outside of the scope of the study.
Cured is not defined medically for any non-infectious disease. When any cure occurs for non-infectious diseases, no cure can be documented. The cured illness simply disappears.
Homeopathy is not the reason for this blindness. It’s just another casualty. No clinical study can find a cure for irritable bowel syndrome – until cured is medically defined.
Unfortunately, conventional medicine also has no definition of cured for most diseases. Therefore, it cannot rebut homeopathic claims of cured. Instead, conventional medical practitioners, researchers, and their followers claim “homeopathic treatments cannot possibly work“. Works, in medical science, generally means helps with signs and symptoms of disease, butdoes not cure. If it cures, we could use the word “cure”.
What diseases do homeopaths cure?
Homeopathic doctors don’t rely on “just water,” but those who criticize homeopathy only focus on claims that the water cannot cure. Actual cures are simply ignored. We simply don’t know what diseases or medical conditions might be cured by a homeopath. We don’t even know what diseases or medical conditions have been cured by homeopathy. When a homeopath cures a patient’s illness – the cured status and the cause of the cure are ignored by conventional medicine. The cures are ignored by homeopathic medicine as well. We have no statistics for cured by homeopathy.
What happens after a homeopathic cure? It disappears. Cured is not medically defined for most diseases treated with homeopathic medicines. The cured status disappears from the view of conventional medicine. It also disappears from the view of homeopathic medicine. Homeopathy aims to cure symptoms, not illness, not disease. Cures, accomplished by homeopathic treatments, are not even counted by homeopaths.
When a cure occurs in most clinical trials, the cure disappears. Cures in clinical trials of non-infectious diseases disappear, because cured is not medically defined for any non-infectious disease.
In conventional medical practice cured cases disappear as well. It makes no difference if the medical practitioner is an oncologist, a psychologist, a dentist, an obstetrician, or a general practitioner. No conventional medical practitioner counts cured cases.
So, when a homeopathic cure occurs, the cure disappears, but it’s not about homeopathy, it’s about cured.
To find scientific answers about cures by homeopathy, or by any other conventional or alternative medical treatment, we need to study cure, cures, curing, and cured. Attempts to measure the non-curative effects of homeopathic treatments vs placebos or vs conventional medicine, only asks the question:
“which treatment FAILS TO CURE better”
It’s a nonsense question. Without a definition of cured – we have no idea if the treatment cured the illness, or moved the condition towards a cured state, or away from one – ultimately making a cure harder. We can’t tell. To count cures, we need to count cured cases.
To study cures scientifically, we need to study cured. We need a theory of cure. A New Theory of Cure defines cures in a comprehensive fashion, providing a solid foundation for studies of treatments that cure.
It’s over 20 years since I met my first disappearing patient. A nurse in her early 40s, let’s call her Kate. Kate was diagnosed with breast cancer. As a nurse, she had often seen the results of treatments for breast cancer, and frankly, she was terrified, and determined. She was not having surgery, chemotherapy, nor radiation.
But, Kate worked in a hospital with the doctors who diagnosed her cancer. She worked with the surgeon, who urged her to schedule her surgery “as soon as possible.” At first she was furious “If it’s here today, it must have been here last year. Why didn’t you find it last year.“
The next thing Kate did was slow down. Her cancer was small. She knew it not an acute illness. There was no need for immediate action. She had been tested for breast cancer last year. No cancer was found. She knew it took years for cancers to develop. It had not metastasized. It was not growing rapidly, not affecting her health in any way. She knew, from experience, that she had lots of time. So, she took some time, to do some research.
We met in Canada. It didn’t take her long to remind herself that, in Canada and the USA, treatments for cancer are akin to law. No doctor, no clinic, no hospital dared deviate from the three Standards of Care for cancer. She new there were no Standards of Cure for cancers.
Kate didn’t look for magic cures. She didn’t search for the latest conventional or alternative cancer cure. She wasn’t interested in curing herself. She was a nurse, not a doctor.
Instead, she searched for the cured. Of course there is a problem – our medical systems have no definition of cured for cancer. There is no medical nor scientific test for cancer cured. Modern medicine tracks cancer cure rates, statistical measures of “presumed to be cured” because cured patients cannot be medically recognized. This is still true today.
She wanted to find patient who were diagnosed with cancer, and no longer had cancer. She knew, from her work, from conversations with patients and staff, that these people existed, but they were invisible. No doctor, clinic, hospital nor medical system tracks cured for any disease. Cured patients don’t need medical treatments.
It didn’t take long to find patients who claimed they were cured. They hadn’t disappeared from life, they weren’t invisible. They were eating, drinking, living, loving, full, healthy and prosperous lives. But according to the medical records, cured didn’t exist. It’s as if they were never cured. Just like the common cold, influenza, measles, and COVID, there are no medical records of cured.
The medical system dismissed these cures anecdotal. Know this, every case of cured, for any disease, is a single case, a story, an anecdote. Cured patients are ignored. No doctor attempts to understand what happened to cured patients. They just move on. There are lots of sick people. Our medical systems diagnose sick people, treat sick patients, document sick patients. Cured patients were not sick.
Kate met with a few of them. She was not interested in debates about clinical science vs anecdotal evidence. Her interests were personal. She talked, listened, and compared stories. Several spoke about a clinic that made no claim to cure cancer; that did not use medicines to treat cancers. Yet somehow, many patients were cured. The clinic was not in Canada, not in the USA. Kate had to go to Mexico to learn more.
There are lots of so-called alternative medical clinics in Mexico, and in many other countries. Are some of them curing cancers? Are some of them scams, just taking money from desperate patients? Do they only work sometimes, only in some cases? Would they work for Kate’s cancer? Kate didn’t know. She did more research. She called the clinic.
The staff made no claim to cure cancer. Claiming to cure cancer is not just forbidden, it’s dangerous, even for a clinic outside of North America. They suggested Kate visit the clinic, to see for herself what happens there. There was no charge for a visit, and no promises. Her only cost was to pay for travel to Mexico.
Kate made her decision. She was familiar with cancer diagnosis in Canada. She had undergone a physical examination, a mammogram, that detected a lump in her breast. Then she’d had a biopsy, where tissue was taken from the lump and sent to a lab for analysis. The lab technician examined the sample and said it was ‘cancer.‘ Once a diagnosis is cancer, everyone swings into action. Kate also knew that mammograms have both a false positive rate and a false negative rate. Many people who are diagnosed with a possible cancer by a mammogram do not actually have cancer. She knew, from her medical experience, that cancer biopsies also have a false positive rate and a false negative rate.
She didn’t really know for certain if she had cancer. Her surgeon, on the other hand, was pressing her to schedule treatment.
Kate knew one thing. She had time. She cashed out some savings and booked a holiday in Mexico. A short visit to the clinic convinced her, an experienced nurse, without any desire to return home and consider the decision. She signed up, paid the fee and entered the clinic.
At the clinic, Kate was surprised to learn there was no attempt to validate the cancer diagnosis. The staff at the clinic checked the presence and size of the lump on her breast. But they didn’t repeat the biopsy. The clinic read her diagnostic reports, but did not investigate them further. In place of a diagnosis, there was a thorough analysis of her health of body, mind, spirits, and communities, by a suite of several different doctors. “Two full days of tests and interviews”, she told me “no waiting in line.”
Kate was asked about her family’s medical histories. She gave blood samples. She was questioned extensively about her diet. Doctors examined her lungs, her heart, liver, and other bodily organs with various tests. Her immune system was tested. There were extensive interviews about her life, her work, her family and social relationships.
At that time, Kate, I didn’t realize this was not a medical analysis, it was a health analysis. The tests and the questions fit perfectly to the hierarchy of healthicine: genetics, nutrition, cells, tissues, organs, bodily systems, body, mind, spirits, communities, and environments.
Kate’s genetics were analyzed. Her nutritional status was analyzed, not just analyzing what she ate, and what she preferred to eat, but also by asking what she didn’t like to eat, what she deliberately never ate, what foods she was allergic to. Her cells and tissues were analyzed directly, through blood samples and physical examination, and indirectly through medical history. Many of her organs were tested for healthiness. Her bodily systems, immune system, circulatory system, respiratory system, hormonal systems and more were analyzed and assessed. Her physical body was measured, weighed, and examined carefully. Her mental health was assessed, as was her emotional, spirit, and spiritual healthiness. She was in good spirits, even in light of a potentially fatal illness. The doctors discussed her family, her relationships with her children, her spouse, her parents, her work communities, and more.
A few days later, Kate met with a group 6 or 7 doctors to discuss her health, not her illness, her healthiness. Diagnosing disease is difficult. Analyzing healthiness is more complex. It took several hours for Kate to hear and understand what they had learned about her healthinesses and her unhealthinesses.
Then they prescribed two weeks of healthiness training, tailored to Kate’s specific situation. She spent the two weeks at the clinic, practicing, learning to be healthier, not in theory, instead, learning what Kate needed to do to make her diet, her body, her mind, her spirits, and even her relationships with her communities healthier. She said that, “after two weeks of learning and practice at the clinic, my breast lump had already started to shrink”.
Kate went back to Canada and put her leaning into action. The lump disappeared. Her diagnosis was still there, on paper, but her cancer had disappeared. She was retested at her hospital. Result: NED. No Evidence of Disease. No cancer could be found.
Then Kate began disappearing.
When the surgeon asked, she explained that she was not going to surgery. He looked away and wouldn’t look her in the eye.
She didn’t disappear from her family. She went back to her family. She didn’t disappear from her job. She went back to her job. She disappeared from the cancer system. Her cancer disappeared, so, as a cancer patient, she disappeared.
Was she cured? We don’t know. There is no scientific nor medical definition of cancer cured. We have no medical or scientific test to prove a patient is cured of cancer or not. We have no cancer statistics for people who are cured of cancer. Patients who are cured are not counted. No breast cancer patients are officially cured. If their cancer goes away, they disappear from the system. Diagnostic statistics remain, cured statistics don’t exist. If their cancer is killed by radiation, chemotherapy or surgery, they are not counted as cured, they are counted as a survivor. Did they survive the cancer? Or the treatment?
Most cancer survivors live in fear of the cancer’s re-appearance, as if the disease is only hiding, never cured. Symptoms are said to be in remission, but their cancer is not called cured.
I met Kate five years after her experience. She still has no cancer. She paid, from her own pocket, for her trip to a clinic in Mexico. After the trip, her cancer disappeared. She had medical insurance. But her insurance wouldn’t pay for her trip. Insurance pays for approved treatments, not for cures, regardless of success or failure. Cured cases disappear.
There are three ways for a cancer patient to disappear. They might be cured by an approved treatment, they might cured by health. Or, they might be cured by a medicine or treatment that is not approved. In all cases, our medical systems ignore the cured. If the treatment was approved, the patient is tracked. If it was not an approved treatment, only the approved portion of the treatment, the diagnosis, is documented. Cured is not documented for any patient, for any case of cancer.
I have since met several cancer patients who have disappeared in various ways. Not just cancer patients. I often meet people who claim to be cured of arthritis. I know one person who claims to be cured of myopia. Years ago, I talked to someone who cured their Parkinson’s disease in New Zealand. These cures, like Kate’s cancer, were simply ignored. I’ve met more by internet, email, etc. Maybe you have similar stories?
Medical Theory
In our current medical practice, cancers are treated like injuries – the cause is considered to be in the past. Treatments target the cancer cells, the result of the cause. There are thousands of potential causes in the past – which might be used to prevent cancers, but not to cure them.
Theory of Cure
In the new theory of cure, a cure addresses the present cause of an illness. In some cases, like a minor skin cancer, we can cure by removing the melanoma surgically. In other cases, like a slow moving breast cancer, the cause is present in the life of the patient. The cure is to address the present cause. But it can be very difficult to find and address different present causes of individual cases of cancer.
What to do?
The Mexican clinic used a shotgun approach. They identified as many health factors as possible that might be contributing to the cancer – and addressed as many as possible. If, or when they address the present causes in a specific case, the cancer is cured. Which was the cause? Because of the shotgun technique – we can’t tell. Is it important? The cancer is cured. And what about the causes of unhealthiness that were not causing the cancer? Well, they too were improved. The side effect of the shotgun healthiness approach is a broad swath of improved healthiness.
Once Cured
There is no way for me to determine if a disappeared cancer patient actually had cancer, if their treatment cured their cancer, if their body cured their cancer, or if they still have cancer. We can only tell if there is another cancer diagnosis. The absence of a diagnosis is not considered a cure, medically, it’s just NED – No Evidence of Disease. In the theory of cure, a new case of cancer, not a remission, might occur if the causes reoccur. The prior case was cured.
Doctors, clinics, hospitals, and medical researchers have no tests for a cancer cured. We have no medical technique or technology to recognize, much less document a cancer cured. So, we have no statistics for cancers cured.
Many cured patients don’t disappear quietly. They speak out. They write books and newspaper articles. They blog. But it doesn’t matter. They still don’t count. Once cured, they disappear from the medical system. No medical system studies individual cured cases, their causes, their cures. We have no techniques to document cured cases for any chronic disease from cancers to arthritis, diabetes, heart disease, even obesity, and many more. As a result, there are no statistics of cured cases of any chronic illness. For diseases where “there is no cure for…” like the common cold, influenza, measles, and COVID, we have no definition of cured and no ability to detect a cured case either, much less to identify the cause of the cure.
Once they are cured, they disappear. Health doesn’t cure illness, it disappears illness. Modern medicine doesn’t count people whose disease has disappeared.
to your health, tracy
ps. If you are, or if you know someone who disappeared their incurable illness, drop a note in the comments, or send me an email. I’m always interested in these cases, and I hope that someday, our medical systems will be interested in them as well.
The original version of post, published on Healthicine.org in 2015. It has been republished by several other sites – sometimes even without my knowledge, much less credit. This version has been brought up to date with the latest concepts of the New Theory of Cure.
Have you ever been cured? Were you cured by a medicine? or perhaps not?
Can you name a disease that can be cured, but cannot be cured with medicines? Can you name two? Five? More? How many diseases are there that are easily cured – but cannot be cured by medicines?
I am currently in living Arequipa, Peru, and working on a translation of the Theory of Cure – into Spanish.
Actualmente vivo en Arequipa, Perú, y trabajo en una traducción de la Teoría de la Cura al español. ¿Puede usted ayudar? Necesito ayuda de personas que hablen español e inglés para que me den sus opiniónes.
Thanks for reading Theory of Cure! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
Can you help? I need help from people who speak Spanish, and English to give me feedback. You can provide feedback here in the comments, or by emailing me at tracychess@hotmail.com.
Any feedback you can provide is important to me. It might be useful to understand some of the challenges – even in the English version of the theory.
A Summary of the Translation Process
The first problem in creating a theory of cure is simply the meaning of cure. In English, most medical references have no definitions for cure, cures, curing, and cured – much less any standard medical definitions. Most medical references do not even provide a definition of cure. It turns out the same is true in Spanish.
CURA
These dictionaries do not contain an entry for cure (cura)
MANUAL DE TERMINOLOGIA MÉDICA, Prof. Edwin Saldaña Ambulódegui, 2012
Diccionario Medico Título original: Concise Medica/ Dictionary de Oxford University Press,
Traducción y adaptación: Dr. Rafael Ruiz Loro, 1988.
Diccionario Espasa medicina by Universidad de Navarra. Facultad de Medicina, Madrid, Spain, 1999.
Libro De La Vida Diccionario De Medicina Abril 1973
Diccionario de términos técnicos usados en medicina by Garnier, Marcel, 1918
Diccionario Médico, Chris Brooker, 2008
Diccionario Medico Completo, Engais-Espanol, Jorge Carlos Berriatúa Pérez, 2013
The definition for cure in Nuevo diccionario médico by Ruiz Lara, Rafael Publication date 1988 says simply “cura: Ver TERAPÉUTICA“, but there is no entry for TERAPÉUTICA.
I did find Spanish medical reference that claim to define cure. The first is a Nursing dictionary, Diccionario de Enfermería – Segunda Edición (Spanish Edition), Rojas Núñez, Silvia, 2003 which defines cure and curable thus: “Cura > (Del lat. cura, cuidado, solicitud). Curación. Curable = (Del lat. curabĭlis). Persona que es susceptible de curar.“
The only Spanish Medical reference where I could find a meaningful definition of cure was written in 1805. which identifies four classes of cures:
1. la conservativa ó vital, baxo la qual se halla también comprehendida la analéptica: 2. la preservativa ó profiláctica: 3. la paliativa ó mitigatoria, que comprehende la urgente; y 4. la radical, que es con toda propiedad el tratamiento terapéutico ó curativo.” –
In English “1. the conservative or vital, under which the analeptic is also included: 2. the preservative or prophylactic: 3. the palliative or mitigating, which includes the urgent; and 4. the radical, which is properly the therapeutic or curative treatment.”
Has there been no change the medical definition of cure since 1805.
Of course normal Spanish dictionaries define cure, and Spanish-English dictionaries defined cure, but these cures are based on general language usage, not on medical theory, practice nor science.
The second problem to defining a theory of cure, is the question: “What is cured by a cure.” Working in English, I quickly learned that we cannot begin by studying cures of diseases. Most diseases, officially – according to our medical systems are incurable. Even “there is no cure for the common cold.”
In English I chose the word illness. The concept of illness is broader than disease. It is possible to be ill without a disease. It is necessary to have an illness before any disease can be diagnosed. In addition, it is possible to have an illness – and a cure – without any diagnosis of a disease. The common cold is a perfect example. We get a cold. We suck it up. And we are cure by health and healthy actions, without seeing a doctor, without a diagnosis, without a officially recorded case of disease.
What is the Spanish word for illness? I’ve chosen dolencia. In Spanish,
“Una dolencia curable se curaba con una cura.”
Writing the Theory of Cure also required the creation of several new concepts. Modern medicine has no clear definition of cure, much less an agreed scientific definition. As a result, many of the concepts required to support an understanding of cure are poorly developed in English.
My Theory of Cure goal is to create a comprehensive view of cure that can be applied to any type of illness or disease. Starting with a process of simplification, I was able to accomplish much more. The resulting general theory of cure is not limited to diseases – it can be applied to any problem in a goal directed system, like a flat tire.
Because I speak English reasonably well I was able to make effective use of current words and language by selecting some clear definitions already in use and combining well known words to create new ideas.
For example, I have defined cure – in the theory of cure – as
Cured: “the cause has been addressed,” a definition that applies to an elementary illness, one with a single cause.
But, what is to be cured? Many diseases – I eventually learned that most diseases – have multiple causes. Does that mean most diseases require multiple cures?
This required a change in the definition of “cause“. The epidemiological cause of dehydration, or scurvy, or a broken arm, or COVID ARDS (Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome) is in the past. Going back into the past to address the failure to drink water, eat healthy foods, to fall down the stairs, or to avoid be exposed to the virus, is not possible. We cannot cure “past causes.” A cure requires addressing the present cause. Drinking water now, consuming Vitamin C new, healing the injury now and addressing the respiratory distress. The concept of present cause does not exist in modern medicine, but it is required to understand cure.
So the definition of cure became an elementary case of illness is cured when its present cause has been successfully addressed.
After more than a year of researching concepts of cause and effect, I made an interesting discovery. There are two basic types of causes, which we can view as nouns and verbs, the words used in the theory of cure are attribute causes and process causes. This is most clearly understood by studying elementary illnesses.
Translating to Spanish, therefore, is quite a challenge. I started over a year ago with Google Translate, and then let it sit for a year. Google translate has problems with new ideas – the words and concepts don’t exist yet. I have similar problems when I try to use Grammarly to edit my content. It simply doesn’t understand new word usage. In Peru, I found someone to help me with the translation and corrected a lot of the Google problems.
I’m looking for Spanish speakers to give me some input on this draft.
to your health, tracy Tracy Dean Kolenchuk tracychess@hotmail.com
Modern medicine suffers from many different and severe cases of curanoia, fears of cures, based on failures to understand cure. It’s not cure phobia, a phobia is an irrational fear without blame. Curanoia is easily and often rationalized and curers are often blamed. Curanoias exist in many forms, in every layer of our systems of modern medicine.
Why Curanoia? Why fear of cures?
Modern medicine has no functional definition of cure, no theory of cure, and is simply unable to cure most diseases – unable even to recognize a cure when it occurs. Doctors are often not permitted to cure, restrained to a Standard of Care which makes no attempt to cure. Few diseases or medical conditions have a Standard of Cure.
A cure is a change in status. An illness or disease was present, and now it is not present. We often think of an illness as a thing, but no. An illness is more like the wind. Illness is something we can neither see nor touch – we might only see or touch its causes and consequences.
“However, too many ads continue to promote an overly simplified model of causation. For example, headaches are not caused by a lack of aspirin in the brain; however, taking aspirin often cures a headache.” – Laura L. Smith, Depression For Dummies, 2021
Is a headache a symptom? or is it an illness, or a disease? Do we cure symptoms? Illnesses? Or only diseases?
Does aspirin cure headaches?
“A headache for example might be the result of a cold, a migraine, high blood pressure, meningitis or a brain tumour, each requiring a different treatment rather than a “cure for headache“. – Craig Thornbur – Theories of Medicine
I sometimes say “I’m taking my car to the vet“, to get its checkup, to cure its problems. Is a flat tire an illness? A disease? Is a bike, a car, or an airplane sick when it has a flat tire? Do we cure flat tires?
We can compare a flat tire to an illness, and its repair to a cure. Why should we make this comparison?
“It has been observed that scientific medicine is being replaced by scientistic medicine, with an accompanying collapse in the imperative to care as well as to cure, so that the human dimension of medicine is becoming lost and with it the fundamental purpose of medicine.” J.P. Sturmberg and A. Miles, Handbook of Systems and Complexity in Health , 2012
