Great Construction

What Medical Science Should Provide
(The Divinely-Inspired Approach to Health)

     The following is part of the August 25, 1948, “Jottings” column in the Tokyo Shimbun newspaper.
     “Most everyone knows that doctors do not care to treat members of their own families. This is because they are afraid they will make a wrong diagnosis.”
     This is all there was to the statement, but upon reflection, a matter of importance lurks beneath this observation. In our work we often hear about this situation, and it shows that medical science has no scientific validity whatsoever. It is believed that medical science has progressed, but there are probably very few persons who think that medical science has gone beyond the bounds of science. That a doctor might make a misdiagnosis because the patient is a family member shows that medical science has no scientific validity. Indeed, diagnosis based on emotion should be considered highly dangerous. If medical science were reliable, ought not doctors feel unease at the thought of other doctors looking at their relatives and should want to diagnose them themselves? Maintaining standards is a prerequisite of science, so even if doctors do not go out of their way to look at family members, the same diagnosis should be given to strangers as well as family members.
     It seems that the diagnostic methods in medical science are conspicuously unreliable. It is inevitable that diagnoses made on such a basis are akin to having one’s future told by a fortuneteller. No condemnation of medical science is intended, but our conclusions are the logical result of consideration of the above situation no matter how these facts are interpreted.
     From what I understand, of all the diseases and conditions in the world, medical science as of today has yet to determine even the cause of the slight but most prevalent illness, the common cold. Therefore, it is sufficient that doctors come to have to diagnose their own family members and medical science should at least clarify the cause of the common cold. Surely reaching such goals are not too much to expect from the progress of medical science.

The Divinely-Inspired Approach to Health, page 37, April 20, 1950 
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