Lynch Mobs and Leeches Revenge is SweetIt's been a good while since I've reported/railed about anything in the psychology realm, a branch of medicine I consider largely charlatanistic, as you may well know. But every once in a while, I
come across a few tidbits I find fascinating or useful enough to pass along to you. And as you may have guessed, today is one of those days. Here goes… We've all heard the maxim "Revenge is sweet," right? Well, as it turns out, this truism is not merely an expression in our popular idiom - it's a dead-on accurate description of what revenge stimulates in our brains. According to a recent Swiss study conducted at the University of Zurich, PET scans of subjects brains showed that vengeful behavior - specifically, directly punishingfellow subjects who'd cheated them monetarily -stimulated the same receptors in the brain that are linked to enjoyment and satisfaction. Sweets, too. That's right: To your mind, giving someone else his "just desserts" makes you feel like you just ate a hot fudge sundae. Haven't you ever felt satisfied when you refused to let someone butt in front of you in line? Don't you grin a little when you see the car that just roared past you stopped by the cops? We all have, of course. But the real question is WHY do we feel this way? Unlike so many other psychological studies, the authors of this particular body of research have actually come to a conclusion or two (or at least have hypotheses) about their findings: They theorize that the revenge impulse became ingrained in us during a time before there were governments and courts to protect our individual rights (or restrict them, depending on how you look at it - but don't get me started). In antiquity, taking revenge was simply how people punished each other for doing wrong. They took the "law" of perceived right and wrong into their own hands in acts of vengeful vigilantism. It's much the same way in the modern sandlot among children too young to have been programmed to tattle to an adult when a rival takes their favorite toy away. Instead, they take direct revenge - by stealing something the transgressor values, or simply giving them a good smack. Now, though, in the "civilized" world, we've got cops, lawyers, judges and bureaucrats to take our revenge for us. Half the time, they do a half-hearted job of it, and the other half
they don't do it all… The end result? We suffer all the pain and outrage when we're victimized, but feel none of the equalizing, self-esteem-restoring satisfaction our rightful revenge would give us. Am I advocating a return to the days when lynch mobs roamed the streets and petty criminals were sentenced to time in the public stockade in the town square (where anyone could walk up to them and take their own revenge with a kick or a curse)? Maybe not, but there must be some way to give folks an outlet for the angst their victim-hood leaves them with. I do know this: There sure was a lot less crime back then. As shocking as this may sound in today's drugs-for-everything medical world, a new study suggests that doctors of 2,500 years ago may have known the secret to stopping a lot of serious
infections: Bloodletting! That's right, bleeding patients nearly dry - a common medical practice from around 500BC to the middle of last century - is apparently somewhat effective against the staphylococcus bacteria, a leading cause of pneumonia and other life-threatening ailments, according to some recent University of Chicago research. How? Quite simply, because staph and other germs thrive on iron in the blood (I've written before about the evils of excess iron, but that's another topic), and reducing the amount of blood in a body eliminates a lot of this "fuel" for harmful microbes. According to a recent Associated Press article on the topic, an iron specialist from the National Institute of Health reviewed the U of C study and suggested that the ancient practice of bloodletting may have been just the ticket for thwarting many early-stage bacterial infections. In keeping with this finding, French medical texts of the mid-1700s advised bleeding at the START of high-fever illnesses. Even as late as 1942, medicine's leading English-language text recommended early bleeding for pneumonia. Hmm, looks like they might've actually gotten something right before YOU came along, Dr. Prescription-pad… Am I suggesting that we start breaking out the leeches instead of the antibiotics? Not exactly. I'm just saying that some of medicine's ancient treatments were perfectly sound (look at how well maggot therapy works in saving doomed limbs and healing stubborn, oozing wounds), and they should be considered along with all of the pill and scalpel tricks the mainstream relies on these days.
Living proof that just 'cause it's old doesn't mean it's wrong,
William Campbell Douglass II, MD | 
