똥도 약이란 말, 결코 허튼소리가 아님을 백인들이 증명해줍니다.

육 년 전에 크러쉬증후군(매몰증후군)에 관한 글을 쓰면서 어혈을 풀기 위한 처방가운데 똥물이 최고라는 글을 올린 적이 있습니다.(아래 링크). 그리고 이 글을 한의학의 어느 학회 사이트에 올렸는데 당시 비난을 좀 심하게 받았습니다. 똥물에 얼마나 많은 박테리아가 있는데 그걸 약으로 쓰냐? 그저 실없는 옛말에 혹한 한심한 한의사가 아니냐는 그런 류의 비난이었습니다. 당시 그런 비난을 양의사가 했다면 그러려니 했겠습니다만 한의사가 그러니 참으로 황당했습니다. 젊은 한의사한테 비난 받아서 황당했던 것이 아니라 확신할 수 있는 내용을, 그리고 생각해 볼 수 있는 치료이치를 무시하고 어설프게 양의학이란 색안경으로 한의학을 바라보는 태도가 한심했었기 때문입니다. 마치 한의학의 과학화가 이루어지지 않는 이유는 이런 늙은이가 헛소리하는 풍토때문이라는 그런 분위기였습니다. 그런데 필자가 정말 안타까워 하는 것은 성적이 우수한 학생들이 한의대에 들어와 배우는 것이 겉만 배우고 본질을 보지못하는 학문적 자세였습니다. 즉 필자를 비난했던 한의사가 진실로 과학을 하고자 하는 자였다면 똥이 더럽다고 치부하여 미신으로 몰아갈게 아니라 왜 그런 말이 나오게 되었을까 하고 합리적인 사고의 단계를 밟아 똥도 약이란 말의 연원과 약이 되는 이치를 따져보는 자세를 먼저 보여주었어야 합니다. 한편 한의학에서 약재로 동물의 똥을 귀하게 쓰기도 합니다. 어혈 푸는 약재로 다람쥐 똥인 오령지라는 약재는 정식 한약재 명칭입니다. 이걸 알면서도 필자를 비난하는 것은 동물의 똥은 약재가 되고 사람의 똥은 약재가 될 수없다는 논리이니 이는 참으로 어이없는 사고체계인 것입니다. 참고로 필자가 이런 옛 일을 말하는 이유는 어떤 한풀이를 하고자 하는 목적이 아니라 1. 제발 옛 사람이라고 무지한 게 아니니 경험을 자신의 속좁은 잣대로 무시하지 말고 2. 또한 매사를 선입감성에 젖어 근거없이 사물을 판단하려고 하는 자세를 지양하도록 이 글을 읽는 독자들한테도 경계하도록 지적하고 싶기 때문입니다. 오늘 어느 소식지에서 백인들은 사람의 똥을 대장질환에 쓰고 있다고 하는 내용이 나왔습니다. 백인들의 이런 생각의 근원은 어디에서 비롯되었을가요? 결국 한의학 고서들에서 나온 것입니다. 마치 거의 모든 양약이 그렇듯이요. 우선 매몰증후군에 관한 필자의 글을 링크합니다. target=_blank>http://www.harabiclinic.com/list/view.php?id=freeboard&page=4&sn1=&divpage=1&sn=on&ss=on&sc=on&keyword=똥&select_arrange=headnum&desc=asc&no=551 아래 링크는 오늘 뉴스로 올라온 외지의 내용입니다. 아래 파란 글자는 똥은 만성적인 장감염을 치료할 수 있다는 내용입니다. (참고로 염증은 어혈이죠) http://www.sciencealert.com.au/news/20141310-26323.html A capsule containing poo can treat chronic intestinal infections Fiona MacDonald     Monday, 13 October 2014 상세한 번역은 생략합니다. 아래는 사진을 제외한 원문입니다. A capsule containing poo can treat chronic intestinal infections Fiona MacDonald     Monday, 13 October 2014 Over the past year there’s been a lot of talk about the medical benefits of feacal transplants - and now scientists have found a way to give them orally. Eat sh*t and die, bacteria. Image: Hohmann Lab via NPR A feacal transplant is a procedure in which poo from a healthy patient is implanted into the colon of an unhealthy patient. Unexpectedly, it's been shown to treat a range of intestinal illnesses and infections, but right now it's too expensive and uncomfortable to be used widely. Officially known as feacal microbiota transplant (FMT), the poo is currently transplanted into the sick patient using a colonoscopy or by feeding a tube down from the nose to the colon - which, as you can imagine, isn't pleasant. But now researchers from the Massachusetts General Hospital in the US have managed to put frozen feacal matter into capsules that can be taken orally. And small-scale trials show these capsules have a similar 90 percent success rate against the potentially fatal bacteria Clostridium difficile bacteria as traditional poo transplants. The results werepublished in the Journal of the American Medical Association over the weekend. "The use of capsules simplifies the procedure immensely, potentially making it accessible to a greater population," said Ilan Youngster, a co-author on the paper, in a press release. C. difficile infection causes 250,000 hospitalisations and 14,000 deaths each year in the U.S. alone, and up to 30 percent of patients infected with it don't respond to antibiotics. Chronic infection can lead to debilitating digestive issues. In the past, feacal transplants have been shown to have a more than 90 percent success rate in treating these patients. This is because the poo also carries the gut bacteria from the health donor’s gut, and these microbial communities can fight off C. difficile infections within days. Earlier this year, the same Massachusetts team, led by Elizabeth Hohmann, had previously shown that frozen feacal matter was as effective as fresh samples, and so donations could be made at any time from carefully screened patients, blended with medical-grade saline and filtered as per usual, but then stored for later use. Now they’ve gone a step further and put that concentrated poo liquid into a capsule. These pills were tested on 20 patients between the ages of 11 and 84 who all received 15 of the frozen poo pills. If they weren’t feeling better within 72 hours, they were given another 15 pills from the same donor. Out of the 20 patients, 14 had their symptoms resolved by the first treatment and they showed no recurrence for the next eight weeks. The other six received a second dose of the pills (they took 30 overall) about a week later. Five of those patients had their symptoms resolved, while one didn’t respond to the treatment. Eight weeks later all but one of the patients had showed no signs of reinfection, which is a similarly impressive success rate to traditional poo transplants. Team leader Hohmann estimates the entire course of this treatment would cost only $500, around one sixth the price of a colonsocopy or a standard course of antibiotics. Of course, there are still some “gross out” issues to overcome - chiefly the fact that, when it comes down to it, you’re asking people to eat sh*t. "When I first started doing this I had in my mind that it would be a little red-and-white banded capsule, like a Tylenol capsule," Hohmann told Nancy Shute for NPR. "That was my dream." But unfortunately, the capsules need to be acid-resistant to survive the stomach and make it into the large intestine, and acid-resistant capsules are only available in transparent form. "So they are sort of brownish-colored capsules," Hohmann admits to NPR. "Fortunately, because they're frozen, when you take them out of the freezer they sort of frost up a bit and they're not too gross." Larger studies are now needed to prove that this method will be effective for a wider range of patients and is safe, but these are extremely promising initial results. Another 21 people have since been tested by Hohmann’s group, with similar success rates so far. But Hohnmann stresses that this treatment may not necessarily be for everyone in the future. "It's a really easy decision to make on a 75-year-old person who's home-bound by diarrhoea they can't get rid of," she told The Washington Post, "but it's another thing to talk about giving the treatment to a toddler. We have a lot to learn — and hopefully, it's all positive." Source: NPR, The Washington Post, EurekAlert