"Complicating it invariably leads to chain multiplication of unforeseen effects and unexpected consequences, followed by excuses about the "unexpected" aspect of the consequences, and further intervention to correct the secondary effects, which results in the explosive branching of a series of "unexpected" reactions, each one worse than the last."...

"Good is above all the absence of evil. There are many hidden benefits in the application of Negative Way Medicine. For example, telling people not to smoke seems to be the greatest benefit of medicine in the last 60 years. Druin Burch, in Taking the Medicine, writes: "The harmful effects of smoking are roughly equivalent to the beneficial...

Iatrogenic means causing a damage (usually hidden in the long term) resulting from a treatment, in which the benefits are inferior to the consequences. It thus expresses the damage caused by seeking help.
Not treating, when there is no need to do so, is thus as valuable or more valuable than treating or intervening.
So why is...

"The history of medicine is the history of the dialectic between action and reflection, and of how to make decisions under conditions of opacity. In the medieval Mediterranean, Maimonides, Avicenna, Al-Ruhawi and the Syriac physicians like Hunain Ibn Ishaq were both philosophers and physicians. Physicians in the medieval Semitic world were called...