Monday, June 9, 2014

Bad Medicine: A Parable



               There was once a physician who had a patient with a severe illness.  Every month this patient, afflicted with severe pain, would attend her monthly appointment, and the doctor would prescribe her medicine for her ailment.  Month after month, year after year, without fail, this arrangement was repeated, the patient seeking a remedy for her prolonged illness and the doctor giving her relief for her symptoms.  As time went on, the disease was not healed but rather spread and became more severe, but by gradually increasing the dose of the patient's medicine, the doctor was able to keep her pain mostly under check.
              
               But, unbeknownst to the patient, this physician was evil and corrupt, a man who lusted for wealth and relished the power he exerted over his clients.  Although he knew the proper vaccine for the patient's illness, he kept it a secret from her and instead provided her with a weak medicine that only treated the symptoms of her disease, in order that he might keep her dependent upon him and extort more and more money out of her.  Furthermore, the prescribed medicine, although appearing to treat at least the symptoms of the condition, actually was designed to make the underlying problem worse, causing the disease to spread further and more severely throughout the body.  This allowed the evil physician to milk his patient for even more money, as the increased dose and strength of her medicine also cost more.
              
               The patient, however, unaware of the doctor's true character and not astute enough to research the condition for herself, loved her doctor and believed that she could not live without him.  "Without this physician and his medicine," she would say to herself, "I certainly would have died by now."
              
               What think you of this man?  And of what is he deserving?

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