Fatigue, irritable and miserable all the time
Severe pain in limbs and joints
Easy bruising
Swollen, bleeding gums
teeth fall out
Shortness of breath
wounds fail to heal
Jaundice
Edema
Fatal heart disease
The worst epidemic was among sailors. Ships would go out to sea and return with half to only a third of the crew, the rest having been buried at sea when they died of scurvy. For example, during the Seven Years War the British Royal Navy reported 134,000 out of their 185,000 enlisted men died of disease, mostly scurvy. Scurvy killed over a thousand times more sailors than cannon fire.
In 1753 a British naval surgeon, John Lind, published a book about curing scurvy with lime juice. The establishment doctors rejected his ideas, and continued to prescribe:
Mercury
Purgatories
Laxatives
Malt
Smoke in the colon
Elixirs
Bury the patient up to his neck in hot sand
Alcohol
Herbal concoctions
Patent medicines
People continued to die of scurvy.
Forty years after Dr. Lind's book, a few admirals required lemons aboard their vessels to prevent scurvy, against the advice of the naval doctors. From there, people started using fresh fruit and vegetables to cure scurvy, while the doctors continued to prescribe false treatments. It wasn't the establishment that cured scurvy; it wasn't "science," but rather the common man's quest for truth. When people stopped listening to the doctors, and started looking at the evidence, they came up with the cure. It took another half-century before the doctors accepted the truth!
Truth is all that matters. You can blow smoke up a patient's butt until the cows come home, but it won't cure scurvy. Burying the scurvy-ridden sailor in hot sand for years isn't going to help. For every true treatment, there are a thousand false ones. But the true ones are all that matter. Falsehoods are a waste of time, at best, and mostly do more harm than good.
Nothing has changed in the 21st century. Doctors are recommending crazy surgeries and patent medicines of all sorts with toxic results for heart disease, diabetes, and cancer -- the three biggest causes of death, and people still die. All the remedies and surgeries in the armamentarium of the physician are a waste of time, at best, and kill at worst. There are thousands of treatments, but none are true.
All of the false beliefs of the "scientists" easily become accepted and established because of politics. It is a requirement that the government enforce all false beliefs because otherwise we would have too many independent thinkers seeking practical solutions to problems. This would solve all the problems, and the establishment would fall. Who would go in for heart surgery, the number one most common surgery, if he knew all he needed to do was a simple change in diet? Former President William Jefferson Clinton figured this one out -- the hard way. Who would take toxic drugs that sap energy, libido, and brain power if he knew that hypertension is a fake disease? It is essential for science to hide behind several bastions of power:
Government
Peer pressure
Bandwagon
Money
Statistics
Published "facts"
The problem with government interference in science is taking control. Because of the power of a strong central government to enforce the rules, people will not be allowed to dissent. Those who are not in agreement are ostracized and discredited. They aren't allowed to voice their opinion in printed science journals because it is contrary to what is being taught. "Peer Reviewed" only means "status quo." Also, they aren't given positions of authority so they cannot make changes. Only those who are "yes men" are allowed into the upper levels of established doctrine.
Money is the biggest driver of false science. "You get what you pay for" applies equally to scientists. When the marketing department of a drug company wants a certain outcome, they pay for a study, and find a statistically significant result. Those who pay to publish journals expect to get what they pay for, and don't allow anything that would hurt their business to be published. "Science" is just a tool of marketing. When the California Raisin Board wanted to quell the rumor that raisins caused tooth decay, they paid for a study, and published: "a chemical found in raisins might inhibit tooth decay." The "science" is sound, except for the fact that raisins cause tooth decay.
The way to truth, then is not more government money in science, nor can it come through large donations by foundations or corporations. Truth will always be found in the lowest levels of practicality where nobody cares about statistics, nobody gets paid for a specific outcome, nobody reads journals, and there is only pressure to bring results. Scurvy was cured by the common man, in spite of doctors. Truth is found in the practical wisdom of the ages, or in new solutions to problems that are found by those in the trenches, who deal with it regularly. Those who are looking for money or notoriety are going to give false information so professionals can never be expected to bring truth to a society. The fact that it happens occasionally is a credit to those who are not sullied by the system. Whether in or out of the establishment, only those who are seeking practical solutions will know truth.
This principle applies to all knowledge. Science, law, art, religion, teaching, health care, and all professions and institutions are more likely to find truth when there is no establishment or dogma. Nobody can be an expert; everyone must become a humble seeker of truth. Power to learn, grow, and progress in all areas of life comes from the individual. Institutions maintain falsehoods more than they could ever establish truth. All forms of regimes, installations, or establishments exist to promote a status quo, and halt progress. Truth comes through independence.
Truth is the most important thing. There is nothing more important. If we learn all there is to know, but it's all false, then we are still just ignorant. All the concoctions and surgeries in the world aren't going to cure scurvy until the patient gets vitamin C. There is no way around the truth. In spite of all the oncologists in the world, people die of cancer at the same rate. Because of peer pressure, only a precious few see the futility of the treatments offered by "science." Truth is found in the common man, not in the pillared halls of institutions. The truth is simple. Eating an orange is so much easier than being buried up to the neck in hot sand; improvement happens instantly, and cure comes in a couple of weeks. Ignorance is in establishment, while freedom brings truth. We look back in scorn at those stupid doctors of the 18th century blowing smoke, but often don't consider that because we also have an establishment that purports to be able to cure our epidemics, we are as ignorant as they were. As Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Carr so aptly stated:
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