Prof. Keith Scott-Mumby's Total Health Newsletter #51. Week ending May 23rd, 2010 Please feel free to forward this to friends who might be interested in reading it.
I'm in the UK on business for the next 2 weeks (back June 10th). May not be a Letter From Serendipity; it won't be easy, on the road living in hotels. -Prof.
“If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, ‘Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.’
-- Martin Luther King
1. What You Don't Know About Drowning Will Kill You (or Someone Else)
I didn't choose this topic because it's pleasant but because it's informative (you know me!) I give this knowledge in the hope it will one day save a life.
Accidental death is a relatively rare form of demise, though proportionately higher in younger people, since they don't get the disease spectrum of older folks. Drowning is one of the commoner accidental deaths, after road traffic accidents, of course.
Did you know that in cold Northern waters (these figures are from the UK and would apply to New England, but not necessarily the Caribbean) 55% of drownings occcur within 10 feet of safety? That's surprising.
Also 66% of victims are good swimmers. How can that be?
It tells us that people in the water can get into difficulty within seconds and rapidly become helpless. Typically, when a victim realizes that they cannot keep their head above water, they tend to panic. This leads to the classic "surface struggle", where they flounder and thrash in the upright posture, out of control.
It is important to realize that a drowning person has no voluntary control over their actions. They experience what is called an Instinctive Drowning Response. When this is established (and it comes on very quickly indeed) the drowning person cannot stop drowning or perform voluntary movements to help them survive, such as swimming, waving for help, moving toward a rescuer, or reaching out for a piece of rescue equipment.
Studies with New York lifeguards in the 1950s and 1960s found that this surface stage lasts only 20- 60 seconds.
Drowning is almost always a deceptively quiet event. Struggling to breathe, they cannot stop gasping to shout for help. The waving, splashing, and yelling that people suppose is what a drowning looks like (because of stupid films and television), is rarely seen in real life.
To get an idea of just how quiet and undramatic surface drowning can be, consider this: It is the number two cause of accidental death in children, age 15 and under (just behind vehicle accidents) and of the approximately 750 children who drown each year, about 375 of them will do so within 25 yards of a parent or other adult, who is unaware of anything abnormal ocurring. In ten percent of these drownings, the adult will actually watch the child drown, having no idea it is happening (source: CDC).
Sometimes the most common indication that someone is drowning is that they don’t look like they’re drowning. They may just look like they are treading water and looking up at you. One way to be sure? Ask them: “Are you alright?” If they can answer at all – they probably are. If they return a blank stare and don't reply – you may have less than 30 seconds to get to them before they go under.
Let me re-emphasize that a drowning person is GONE from the surface in from 20- 60 seconds. Throwing them a life ring will not work, because of the Instinctive Response. You have to get to them and pretty quick. That's why Life Guards are so wonderful.
When the victim finally goes down and can't re-surface, they hold their breath as long as possible; typically only 60- 90 seconds and then are forced to inhale, which brings in water and blocks the gas exchange in the lungs. Inhaling water also triggers a spasm of the larynx, to seal the airway shut against water. The end then comes quickly.
Once the oxygen supply is cut off, a calmness soon ensures, from loss of consciousness. That's when people see the "tunnel of light", angels etc. We have learned this from those plucked from death at the very last moment of life.
2. Hard Copies of "Cancer Confidential" and "World Without Antibiotics"
Last week I announced the availability of hard (printed) copies of my two most popular eBooks: "Cancer Confidential" and "How To Survive In A World Without Antibiotics". The response was really gratifying.
I offered them with no shipping costs. I absorbed the costs. But to various parts of the world, oversease shipping cost me as much as $17.00, depending on the territory. Since publishing is my living, I cannot afford to give away this amount of money.
So here's the deal. If you want a printed copy sent to your door, go order it NOW, because I shall be charging shipping as of the end of next week.
By the way: I made a mistake with the pricing of "How To Survive In A World Without Antibiotics" ($10 too much!). This has been corrected.
I repeat, both without shipping costs for the next week only
4.
The Miracle Of Glutathione
Here's true medical miracle with what must be the most powerful healing substance in our bodies.
After reading Dr. Perlmutter's work in 1999, I started using IV glutathione, in what I called "IV Anti-Oxidant Therapy" (as opposed to chelation). The results I got were every bit as impressive as here. One of my patients was an actor who had a stroke at the age of 29 (now 60 years old). He was paralyzed in his left hand.
On the very first infusion he could move the fingers of that hand a little. Within weeks he got back most of his grip: after 30 years!
4. US Compulsion To B*S*
I got a little insight into why there is so much lying and dishonesty in the medical and pharmaceutical industries here in the USA... They lie about everything else!
I'm tired of hearing things described as the biggest this or longest that.. when there are bigger and longer examples that anyone educated would know about (for example, the Grand Canyon is NOT the biggest, deepest OR longest in the world- the Copper Canyon in Mexico is.
We almost choked when we heard an "expert" on TV a couple of years ago saying the poor US motorist had to pay the highest price of gas in any country in the world. We knew UK gas prices (petrol for you others) was more than DOUBLE the US rate.
Then just a couple of days ago, we listened to someone, with a straight face, say that Star Trek was the longest run television show in history. "Nothing like it", he said.
Oh yeah! To begin with, Star Trek was a flop here in the USA and taken off the air for years. So it doesn't qualify for anything!! But even if it had been an unbroken run, Star Trek couldn't even come close the the British TV soap series "Coronation Street", which has had an unbroken run, twice-weekly, lasting 50 years (in December 2010).
Living and working in Manchester during my 1980s heyday, I used to have friends among the "Coronation Street" cast and had several as patients. I'm not really a fan but got to defend the territory here!
5.
Cell Phones Dial Side Down?
Please read this intriguing correspondence from subcriber Mike.
Hi, Keith.
Just reading your book Virtual Medicine and the section on cell phones and thought you might like to check this out...
A couple of years ago an American Oncology Prof went on the internet to list some cell-phone hazards as he had apparently become outraged at the numbers of young people seeing him with cancers of the head/brain. One of the things that intrigued me was his instruction to always carry the cellphone with the dial side facing inwards, as most of the radiation escaped from the back (of course, the belt pouches are designed to hold the 'phone with the back facing inwards but the manufacturers would never tell purchasers that this could be a hazard).
I decided to start checking patients using the homoeopathic Biological Age test kit. As you know the higher the level, the sicker the person, with most "terminal" cancer patients that come to me as their last hope having levels 15-20/21 [years] and the pearly gates creaking open. I have even had one lady with a 21 - she died a couple of weeks later.
Invariably, after doing the initial measurement that would normally be less than 5 if healthy, the reading would rise to 12-18/21 when the phone was placed on their knee with dial side up but reverse to the initial level when the phone was turned over so. Try it!
Mike
6. What's In A Word?
Conversate
If you say "What??!?", move to the top of the class. I overheard some jackass use this "word" in a restaurant in Reno; as in "Conversate with him..."
I checked with the waiter, who recognized this was not a real American word; but even he was pressed to come up with converse as a verb and had to be prompted.
What is the matter with Americans that they can't connect with world English? "Acclimate" is another crazy word I keep hearing (rest of the world says acclimatize, of course).
The real word is converse. It can be a noun, as in Rupert Book's beautiful poem: "Think each to each in pure converse, all the livelong day..."
Converse can also be a verb, as I said: we converse with people.
Conversation is another noun from the same Latin root: con (with) + vertere, to turn. (sort of means backwards and forwards, between two).
Conversant is slightly different, meaning to be familiar with.
But look, you don't have to know the origins of words in this way to be able to speak properly! I sometimes despair of Americans and language; "despair", to lose or abandon hope, from the Latin de, from, and sperare, hope... Oh never mind...
So, that's all for this week!
Be well; find the sacred in all you do, otherwise don't do it!
Prof.
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