I will shortly be leaving for another trip to Germany, my second this year and ninth in the past decade. I will be doing follow-up research for a forthcoming report on the German clinics, a report I hope to complete by the end of the year.

So what is so special about this country of 82 million in the heart of Europe? I shall try to answer this in a series of newsletters.

Germany has long held a pre-eminent position in medicine, as in many areas of science. Many early Nobel laureates in medicine/physiology, as well as in chemistry and physics, were products of the famous German university system. Two out of the three founders of microbiology hailed from Germany: Ferdinand Cohn and Robert Koch (the other was, of course, the Frenchman Louis Pasteur). The first Nobel Prize in medicine went to Emil von Behring of Marburg University, and in physics to Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen, discoverer of x-rays. Other early Nobel prizes in medicine similarly went to Robert Koch, Paul Ehrlich, and Albrecht Kossel.

Until the assumption of power by the Nazis in 1933, it was common for international science students to round out their formal education by doing doctoral or postdoctoral work at one of the Germany universities. In the field of complementary and alternative medicine, John Beard got his Ph.D. in Freiburg, Linus Pauling studied in Munich, and Dean Burk studied with Otto Warburg in Berlin.

All that changed with the rise of Nazism, World War II (including the murderous persecution of Jewish scientists) and the destruction that accompanied Germany’s wartime defeat. By mid-century, German science was in ruins. There is no need here to revisit this tragic history. Suffice it to say that the Germany of today is not the Germany of old. As part of its general postwar reconstruction (the so-called "German miracle"), the country rebuilt an excellent medical education and treatment system.

A recent study of German science was entitled "Back to the Future." This was a tacit acknowledgment that German science has tried to recapture some of its world-leading characteristics. But there is one area in which Germany has indeed captured that lead in the Western world, and that is in the field of complementary and alternative (CAM) approaches to cancer. Today, Germany is the preeminent country in the Western world in the theory and practice of CAM.

It would take an entire book to explain exactly what this emphasis on CAM means in the German context and who is practicing what. In addition to a network of conventional hospitals in Germany, there are many private practices and clinics which focus on unconventional medicine. But first I must clear up an ambiguity. The word Klinik in German (pl. Kliniken) has confusing implications for the English speaker. Sometimes the word is used synonymously with the English word clinic. But in American English, at least, this word always denotes an outpatient facility. This particular meaning is more specifically conveyed in German by Ambulanz. (from the Latin, ambulare, to walk). A Klinik in German may indeed be a facility for outpatients. But (confusingly, for English-speakers) it may also have beds for inpatients. Thus, one CAM clinic has over 100 in-patient beds for cancer patients-but nobody in Germany finds it contradictory to call this too a "clinic." This misunderstanding has bedeviled German clinics in their search for foreign patients. Some of the German Kliniken have lately taken to referring to themselves as hospitals, not clinics, in order to make this distinction clearer to English-speaking patients.

TO BE CONTINUED

--Ralph W. Moss, Ph.D.

Reference:

Back to the Future: Germany - A Country of Research German Academic Exchange Service (2005, 02-23). Retrieved 2006, 12-08

WHERE TO GO? - CAM RESOURCES BY REGION

The Where To Go? series continues to attract favorable reviews from readers. Already available are Where To Go? - Houston, Where To Go? - Philadelphia, Where To Go? - Chicago and Where To Go? - Boston. These are the first reports in a series on regional availability of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM).

For more information, or to purchase any of these reports, please click here.

PHONE CONSULTATIONS

Recently we received the following comment from a phone consultation client:

"The phone conversation with Ralph Moss was very useful. In one hour, we went through the most cutting edge available treatment and this gave me a quick insight into some very interesting new roads to check in detail." G. G. - October 2008

Clients who have purchased a Moss Report can schedule an appointment for a phone consultation by calling 1-800-980-1234 (814-238-3367 from outside the US) or by submitting a request via email to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .

CANCER DECISIONS© AND CURRENT TOPICS© REPORTS

Reports in our Cancer Decisions© series are designed to provide readers with the detailed information they need in order to make difficult treatment decisions. Currently available are: :

• Radiation and the Treatment of Breast Cancer
• Antioxidants and Cancer Treatment (Combination report)
• Do Antioxidants Interfere with Radiation Treatment for Cancer?
• Overcoming the Adverse Effects of Radiation Therapy
• Radiation Therapy for Prostate Cancer
• Radiation Therapy for Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer
• Radiation Therapy for Gynecological Cancers

These reports can be purchased and downloaded from our Web site, by clicking here.

OR...Please visit our Web site at www.cancerdecisions.com and click on the blue Radiation Reports button.

For a list of our Current Topics reports on issues of interest in the field of cancer research and treatment please click here.

OR...Please visit our Web site at www.cancerdecisions.com and click on the blue Current Topics button.