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ENVIRONMENTAL MEDICINE In his latest book, Environmental Medicine - Beginnings & Bibliographies of Clinical Ecology, published by Clinical Ecology Publications, Inc., l987, Professional Advisory Board Member Theron G. Randolph, MD, has interwoven his autobiography with the medical discoveries that have come to be associated with his name. He includes photographs, reminiscences and bibliographies of a number of other early contributors to clinical ecology, as well as his own extensive bibliography. Characteristically, Dr. Randolph emphasizes holistic rather than reductionist science, quoting biologist Eugene P. Odum, "It is self-evident that science should not only be reductionist in the sense of seeking to understand phenomena by detailed study of smaller and smaller components, but also synthetic and holistic in the sense of seeking to understand large components as fundamental wholes. A human being, for example,
is not only a hierarchal system composed of organs, cells, enzyme systems, and genes as subsystems, but is also a component of supraindividual hierarchal systems such as populations, cultural sustems, and ecosystems. Science and technology during the past half-century have been so preoccupied with reductionism that supraindividual systems have suffered benign neglect. We are abysmally ignorant of the ecosystems of which we are dependent parts. As a result today we have only half a science of man." For many years Dr. Randolph has concentrated in his practice on "human ecology"--the relationship of each person, as a whole, to his or her environment. In this book he integrates his work on environmental and personal interrelationships and includes sustained reactions such as drug addiction and dementia; alcoholism and morose inebriation; obesity and collagen diseases; as well as the intermittent responses which he described so well when he spoke to NOHA on food addiction in December, l978, and when he wrote "Food Addiction and Ecologic Mental Illness" for "The Doctor's Corner" in NOHA NEWS , Spring l987. On the flyleaf of the new book, Ralph W. Moss, PhD, co-author with Dr. Randolph of An Alternative Approach to Allergies , writes that "Dr. Randolph, the man who will probably be remembered as the greatest pioneer in this field, offers clinical ecology as a sweeping reinterpretation of traditional medical thinking, especially in its approach to many previously unexplained and ineffectively treated chronic diseases. At the heart of this view is the simple concept that there are causes for all illness, and the obvious but too-little accepted fact that what we eat or are exposed to in our environment will have a direct effect upon our health. ... Randolph reached his position by truly listening to 20,000 patients, and directly recording their medical histories on a typewriter without editing or denying complaints frequently mislabeled as hallucinatory by other physicians. ... "Environmental Medicine is an often chilling but sadly true tale of heavy handed opposition from entrenched medical, governmental and industrial interests to new principles and techniques which have the demonstrated ability to help millions. Acceptance of these concepts would severely threaten the status quo in governmental regulation, food and fiber production, industry and personal habits. It would require physicians to individualize their treatment of patients, demanding more time per patient and cutting into lucrative but often superficial medical practices. "Going beyond the traditional medical sphere, Dr. Randolph points out how the attempt to improve the medical wellbeing of patients eventually demands action in the political sphere, and how such action has been frustrated by industrial interests. This book is thus a primer for all those interested in the vital questions of environmental protection." Article from NOHA NEWS, Vol. XIII, No. 3, Summer 1988, page 3. |