From: Billy Brown (bbrown@conemsco.com)
Date: Fri May 07 1999 - 13:58:02 MDT
Jeffrey Fabijanic wrote:
> The ancients were as smart and clever as we (perhaps more so at times),
and
> I have no doubt that there is knowledge and technique that we once knew,
> and do not know now. But I think that stone building techniques are not
> likely amongst them. Look instead to botanical and psychological lore. And
> personally, I think of these less as "Lost Secrets of the Ancients!" (cue
> incidental music) and more as "Poorly Recorded Trade Secrets of People Who
> are Dead Now"!
There do seem to be a few 'traditional herbal remedies' that actually work,
so presumably there were others known to ancient cultures that were also
effective. However, we should keep in mind that we usually wade through
hundreds of completely worthless folk remidies for every one that turns out
to be worthwhile. That being the case, I'm not sure what we should say
about primitive medicine - if an Athenian physician 'knows' two hundreds
treatments unknown to the modern world, of which 199 are actually worthless
and 1 is moderately effective, should we say he knows something we don't?
Or should we say his bag of tricks is essentially worthless, but every once
in a while he happens to do something right by accident?
Billy Brown, MCSE+I
bbrown@conemsco.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 15:03:41 MST