In 1918, sterile-field surgery under anesthetic was common, X-ray
machines were employed, telephones were in use, and hospitals were
electrified and served by motor vehicles.  In those days, doctors
commonly used alternative medicines and modern antibiotics were unheard
of, just the opposite of today.  From 1918 to 1919 the Spanish influenza
pandemic (a world-wide epidemic) flashed around the world, killing
somewhere between 20 and 40 million people.  In fact, more people died
of "Spanish 'flu" in a single year than in four years of the Black Death
(the Bubonic Plague) lasting from 1347 to 1351.  Not Spanish, the flu is
thought to have actually "originated", that is, made the genetic shift or
mutation, in Kansas!  The 'flu was so deadly that it could kill a healthy
male soldier in a few hours; their lungs would fill with bloody fluid and
they would literally drown.  It is estimated one half of the US WWI war
deaths never fell to a bullet, but rather to the 'flu, and at least
675,000 American citizens died from the disease.  World War I is credited
with killing 15,000,000 people in 4 years; Spanish influenza killed
perhaps twice that number or more in a single year.  Think about those
numbers for a moment, and reflect on the outcry concerning West Nile
Virus or SARS.  Neither together has killed as many people as the Spanish
influenza killed in any major US city in a single peek day.
 
The effects of the 'flu was so serious it depressed the average US
lifespan by 10 years.  It had such a profound impact on American culture,
older Americans can still recall the playground rhyme: "I had a little
bird, its name was Enza.  I opened the window, and in-flu-enza."  People
were not allowed on trains without public health certificates, movie
theaters were shut down, people were ordered to wear gauze masks, and
entire towns and cities were placed under quarantine.
 
It also had a lasting impact on ferret owners because scientists
discovered ferrets could catch the 'flu.  Not only did this drive the
desire to use ferrets as lab animals for influenza research, BUT, it
also instilled a fear of ferrets as possible 'flu carriers, making them
unpopular as ratters, while at the same time causing a shift to rat
poisons and helping to spur passage of many anti-ferret laws (I'm sure
you recognize the parallel between SARS and what is being done to civet
cats).  It is no coincidence ferrets became unpopular in the early 1920s.
Many of the ferret farms went out of business, advertisements for ferrets
in farming magazines plummeted, and ratting with ferrets virtually went
extinct in the USA overnight.  All these changes were because or
exacerbated by the 'flu.
 
So what is the point?  It is that most of the alternative medicines and
supplements that are being promoted today, including colloidal silver,
where around then, and they were ineffective in stopping, slowing, or
curing disease.  They didn't stop influenza, or polio, or tuberculosis,
or typhus, or typhoid, or cholera, or plague, or anthrax, or hundreds of
other nasty little bugs that today are commonly treated at the local
doctor's office with a course of antibiotics.  People died using folk
remedies (now called alternative medicines or nutritional supplements)
that today would have survived with a simple dose of antibiotics, or from
periodic immunizations (vaccines).  If they were not all that effective
then, how can they be better now?
 
You can use this stuff, and for the most part they will be harmless
because they have NO value, although for others, the effects on ferrets
are unknown, perhaps even dangerous.  It's your money being wasted, and
your ferrets that suffer.  You have to face the ethical and moral
consequences on your own.
 
Bob C
[Posted in FML issue 4407]