Great Construction
Crime Committed for the Best of Intentions
Some may find the title ironical, but I use it because there is nothing else suitable. What I mean by crime committed for the best of intentions is in reference to medical doctors today. Upon consideration, I do not believe it to be a worthwhile profession. The doctors themselves of course believe that wonderful progress has been made, but the reality is that they still do not understand the origin of disease. Therefore, when the afflicted ask about the cause and prognosis of their disease, because doctors cannot give an answer that will satisfy the sufferers, that doctors are always troubled is something we also understand well. This is best illustrated when are observed in that such as the question and answer sections presented on the subject of various diseases on both the radio and in newspapers. That the answers are ambiguous in the extreme with those answering not once trapped in evasions are aspects which doctors themselves probably know well. Furthermore, even when treated, there are hardly any cases where patients recover as doctors say they will. Most diagnoses are miscalculations with the condition worsening, complications arising, and what often happens is that patients under regular care of a doctor lose their lives. The suffering experienced by doctors themselves as they anguish to come up with excuses can well be imagined.
In addition, there are instances where mistakes are made in surgical operations or in the method of administering vaccinations that lead to inconceivable misfortune, so doctors are despised and sometimes must also face legal proceedings, all of which are probably a great source of anguish as well. On top of which, it seems that there are cases when doctors must go when summoned in the middle of the night or times when depending on the condition, suffering is not easily alleviated. In any case, it is probably often that medical treatment may be able to temporarily suppress a condition, but depending on the disease, doctors find themselves in a predicament when the symptoms cannot be suppressed even temporarily. Then again, the recent aggressive tax policies mean that dealing financially with disease can also be difficult.
Above, I have sketched in general terms the problematic aspects of medical treatment, but the fact is that even though medical science is still in its infancy, it is highly overvalued. This overestimation results in various tragedies. A ridiculous example are the question and answer sections about disease on the radio and in the newspapers previously mentioned. To an even slightly irksome question, the reply is: “You should see a specialist,” but there is nothing as absurd as such an answer. Those who ask these questions have been everywhere seeing specialists and not getting cured, so their questions are inevitable. For such an occurrence to take place is extremely transparent, and those who answer should have no reason not to perceive as such. Anyone who seriously replies in this way is surely making a fool of the questioners, and the reader can understand that any questioner satisfied by such an answer is also trapped in the superstition of medical science.
Other advice often heard is to see the right doctor or to get the right treatment, but if this advice has any validity, it means that there are wrong doctors and that there are wrong treatments. How is the average person to distinguish between such rights and wrongs? I would like to know how to tell right from wrong treatment. What kind of person is the right doctor? Is it academic background? Experience? Position in an organization? Or else, is it good sense? To try to judge this question is probably impossible.
Treatment is the other thing. There is no way that patients who are, after all, amateurs would know what the right treatment should be. In which case the replies described above are all simply forms of evasion. Still, I cannot think to blame doctors for their remarks. Rather, I believe doctors to be pitiable. This is because, as I have continued to teach, it is impossible for contemporary medical science to either understand pathology or to heal disease. Even though medical science has no such understanding at all, the fact that medical science is thought to have progressed is nothing other than a hallucination. If doctors wiped the slate of their minds clean and read World Messianity’s publications, there is no reason that understanding cannot begin.
As shown above, contemporary medical science is indeed an astonishing puzzle of the century, and it probably cannot be denied that frankly speaking, medical science is a crime committed for good intentions. You doctors who think your methods are undertaken with the intent of benevolence should realize that these methods cause exactly the very opposite. It is we who are working day and night to awaken you to your errors and rid the world of disease.
Eikō, Issue 187, December 17, 1952
translated by cynndd
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“Zen’i no Zai’aku” was originally published in Eikō, Issue 187 on December 17, 1952. Although no translations are known to exist, this essay was reprinted in the anthology Igaku Kankei Goronbun Shū (Collected Essays on Medical Science) that did enjoy a limited circulation. This volume contains no publication data, but internal evidence suggests that its editing stopped several months preceding Meishu-sama’s death. Furthermore, since the book contains no publication data, whether the volume had Meishu-sama’s imprimatur or not is unknown, so details concerning this volume are probably impossible to research.