Introduction

 A Fall, A Blow - And The
Trouble Starts

It happens in a fraction of a second. Everything is going well: you easily beat the other man to the ball, you feel safe on your skis as you glide over the snow, your bicycle rolls smoothly over the tarmac as if on rails. Then a moment later everything is suddenly changed. Surprise. Shock. Fear. Pain. Uncertainty.

The other player tried to get to the ball first - the collision was inevitable.

The sudden patch of ice made your skis wobble for a moment.

The pothole brought your bicycle from 40 km/h to a dead stop.

The unexpected has happened. Your body was not prepared for it. Adrenalin shoots into your blood. The whole situation gets out of control. Fear begins to grip you. What’s happening to me? You feel the pain. Something in your body is torn, burst, broken. The question uppermost in your mind is, what is happening to me?

An accident involving injury - whether in the house, on the roads or at sport - is always a shock. What’s facing me now? What will the doctor diagnose? What is he going to decide? Can I trust him? Is the meniscus bruised? The crucial ligament torn? The shoulder broken? Is an operation inevitable? Who is going to treat me? How long will I be out of work? What will my employer say? Can I continue my sporting activities? Will there be permanent damage?

What happens in a split second often has enormous, time-consuming consequences. But why worry, haven’t we got comprehensive medical care? There’s the orthopaedist, the internist, the surgeon, the physiotherapist, the remedial gymnast and all the latest developments in science and technology.

Really?

Don’t we read every day about wrong diagnoses, malpractice, botched up lives after routine operations?

An injury is often the first step on a journey into the unknown - a journey that usually has a happy end. Or is believed to have a happy end. For the question is if the injured part of that infinitely complex system which is the human body is really healed when everything functions again - more or less - as the result of medical treatment?

You, dear reader, are also about to go on a journey into the unknown. In this little book you will tread paths that will surprise you, that may unsettle you, that will certainly prove a challenge to you. If you continue along these paths to the end you will undoubtedly begin to see the whole field of medicine with different eyes.

Part I is concerned with modern medicine, its phenomenal development in the last century but also the scepticism with which it is confronted. In this section we also get to know Mohamed Khalifa. Part II is set on a futuristic stage and it takes us straight to the heart of Mohamed Khalifa’s work and the principles on which it is based.

The quotations at the beginning of each chapter are from Mohamed Khalifa, unless otherwise indicated.