Where are the evidence-based studies showing phosphorus to be effective? All you've done is given us a list of 35 patients who were treated by phosphorus in the year 1875. That is a tiny sample size to base the efficacy of phosphorus on. We don't even know whether they got the same treatment.
You have given us zero case studies on phosphorous. The fact that the issues were resolved for those people in a very short amount of time upon taking phosphorous is evidence enough. Where is your evidence that it is faked, the doctors were slipping in opium or whatever, and that these doctors, and Rowbotham, are shams?
Tom, your evidence isn't perfect, it doesn't even approach a controlled, rigorous study. There could have been a placebo effect at play. Some lurking variables like lifestyle, age, etc. could have also had an effect. Indeed, if you actually looked at the tables, only 16 patients reported a cure, 1 a partial cure, 9 relief, 1 improvement, 2 temporary improvement, 5 no improvement, and one case actually worsened with the phosphorus! Even better, take a look at this table, from your own source:
That's a lot of diseases reported from the patients, some patients having multiple nervous ailments, are you now going to claim phosphorus as some neuralgia panacea? How do you interpret the results now? Just because a majority of the patients reported an improvement or cure doesn't make it good evidence. There are too many loose ends in the evidence you've provided to make a conclusion without more data, which you haven't provided. I'm not calling the doctors liars, it's just disingenuous of you to present a list as a study , and call it evidence.
Evidence-based medical studies? Maybe if you looked at your own evidence you'd find it's just a list of cases where phosphorus was used. Don't know how you get a medical study out of that. Was there a randomization of the experimental units (i.e. the patients). Was there a control group? Was a placebo used? Was the same treatment even used for all the patients in your list? Phosphorus treatment is a rather vague and general term. What levels of dosage were tested with the treatments? And most importantly, has your "evidence-based medical study" ever been replicated? Don't just throw around words without knowing what they mean.
Dosage is discussed in the texts.
If you can't contradict the claims of the doctors with evidence of equal or greater power, then you have no evidence. Your speculation is not evidence. I would suggest learning what evidence is. It is not speculation. It's nice that you are skeptical. But you have no evidence to base your accusations on. No evidence. None. Once you can show evidence, you may suggest that all of these doctors are liars.
Speculation? You claimed your data was an evidence-based medical study. I said your data was merely a list of patients and I gave you the criteria of what a study is and isn't. Out of that barrage of questions, you were only able to address one, so here they are a little more clearer.
How were the experimental units organized in the experiment, by randomization, blocking, or matched pairs?
Was there a control group?
Was a placebo used?
Was the same treatment even used for all the patients given the variation of treatments from your own sources, from solutions of phosphoric acid to a mixture of phosphoric acid and tea, to pills.
Was your "evidence-based medical study" ever replicated?
Bonus Question: Was any form of blinding used?
If you can't answer those questions, then it's not a medical study. In fact, if you read the title of the page of of your "evidence-based medical study," it says
"Tabulated List of cases Treated with Free Phosphorus," nowhere do I see the word study.
I never claimed my questions based on the definition of a study, or what you call speculation was evidence, I'm merely questioning your evidence, and frankly, your evidence is rather weak to support your claims. You're claiming phosphorus has curative properties towards neuralgia. Now, a general rule of thumb in writing research is finding sources relative to your claims, for example, if you write an art paper about cubism, a lot of your sources might be art critics in the 20's. What you're saying is phosphorus can cure people of nerve ailments, medicine is a very dynamic field, yet your source is 124 years old, is not even a study, and does not have any studies corroborating its claims, not then, nor now, nor any time in between. Your source is not proportional to your claims.
A controlled study is mainly needed when you don't know about the disease. Do you think the doctors involved didn't know anything about the disease they were treating, and that it was perfectly normal for those diseases to cure rapidly on its own own after taking a new prescription, or that deliberating pain just goes away on its own with anything prescribed to the patient? That's ludicrous.
Evidence was provided, and you were not able to contradict it.
If you google "controlled study" you'll quickly find that's not what it means.
Here are a few definitions which came up...
- "A clinical trial in which a test agent is compared to a standard treatment with known effects. The control group may receive no treatment, active treatment, placebo or dose comparison concurrent control."
https://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/controlled+study- "An experiment or clinical trial in which two groups are used for comparison purpose."
https://www.greenfacts.org/glossary/abc/controlled-study.htm- "A clinical study that includes a comparison (control) group. The comparison group receives a placebo, another treatment, or no treatment at all."
https://www.cancer.gov/publications/dictionaries/cancer-terms/def/controlled-clinical-trialFrom all the definitions I've seen, which essentially the same as above but in different words, not a single one said anything even remotely close to "A controlled study is mainly needed when you don't know about the disease."
Where did you pull your definition from? Cite the source, too.
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