Two doctors meet in the hospital cafeteria. Jan is an old hand, crusty and a bit intolerant of silliness. Jamie is a new intern, just out of school. They’ve paired up together for work, and for lunches. As they sit down, Jamie asks about a friend.
Jamie: “I have a friend just diagnosed with arthritis. Who is the expert in curing arthritis?”
Jan: “Arthritis? We can treat arthritis.”
Jamie: “But she wants to be cured. She’s got lots of money, and want to find the best doctor to cure her arthritis before it gets worse.“
Jan: “There are no experts in curing arthritis. Maybe when doctors can fly. We treat arthritis, but we don’t aim to cure it. Arthritis cured is not defined. There is no medical test for arthritis cured.”
Jamie: “Seriously? I didn’t learn that in medical school. What other diseases can’t be cured?”
Jan: “Well, we can cure infections with an antibiotic. We cure tapeworm by poisoning it. We can cure diseases with poisons and prove cured by demonstrating that the parasite is gone. Those are the only cures I can think of at the moment. We sometimes use the word cure for surgeries. But cured is not defined for most diseases.”
Jamie: “Don’t we cure some cancers?”
Jan: “Well, technically, we track cure-rate for some cancer treatments, not for cancers. But cure-rate is just disease free survival. Two year cure-rate is two year survival, five year cure-rate is five year survival. Ten year cure-rate… you get the idea.”
Jamie: “So cure-rate doesn’t mean cured?”
Jan: “Cure-rate is a statistical calculation. There’s no proof that any individual cancer is cured. People in the 5 year cure rate group can see their cancer return in year 6. It doesn’t invalidate the 5 year cure rate.”
Jamie: “Wait… Are there no doctors studying cures?”
Jan: “Hmmm… Maybe not. Medical doctors treat patients, mostly for incurable diseases. I can’t think of a medical researcher that specializes in studying cures, nor a medical journal that publishes cures. It seems most diseases are incurable.”
Jamie: “What about alternative medicines. Don’t they claim to cure?”
Jan: “Well, surely if they could actually cure – that would be noticed. They wouldn’t be alternative treatments, they would be cures.”
Jamie: “But if cured is not defined, if no medical doctors study cures, who would notice an alternative cure?”
Jan “You’ve got a point there. Time to get back to work.”
Lunch is over. Jan and Jamie go back to work. But the concept of cure keeps nagging Jan.
Physicians of the utmost fame,
Were called at once; but when they came
They answered, as they took their fees,
‘There is no Cure for this Disease.’
— Hilaire Belloc
Is cured defined? Or not? Cured is not defined for most diseases, most medical conditions. Many medical dictionaries do not contain the word cure, including:
Webster’s New World Medical Dictionary, Third Edition, 2008
The Oxford Concise Medical Dictionary, Ninth Edition, 2015.
The Bantam Medical Dictionary, Sixth Edition, 2009.
Barron’s Dictionary of Medical Terms, Sixth Edition, 2013
Medical Terminology for Dummies, Second Edition
The Oxford Dictionary of Nursing, Edition 6, 2014
Minidictionary for Nurses (Oxford Paperback Reference) 6th Edition
The Lexicon Medicum, Seventh Edition, also known as Hooper’s Medical Dictionary, 1838.
The London Medical Dictionary, published in 1819, uses the word cure several times, but does not provide a definition of cure.
When cure is not defined, is it possible to search for cures? Is it possible to find cures? No.
Cured is not defined in conventional medicine. There are no cures for most diseases, and none can be found, documented, proven, because cured is not defined.
Can we define cure? Yes. It’s trivial.
An illness is cured when its present cause has been successfully addressed.
If the cause has not been addressed, the illness is not cured. Diseases caused by faulty diet are cured by addressing the diet, not by dieting. Injuries are cured by healing the injury, the present cause of signs and symptoms of illness. Diseases caused by negative attributes, like a dental cavity, are cured with surgery. However, many, perhaps most diseases consist of multiple elements of illness, and require multiple cures.
The Elements of Cure is an exploration of cure, cures, curing and cured. It contains a set of logical definitions of cure, partial cure, temporary cure, and also terms like remission, recurrence, and more.
to your health, tracy
