Biographical notes

Except for two years between 1982 and 1983 I have spent much of the past 38 years studying the symptoms of chronic fatigue almost entirely on my own, and providing precise and accurate descriptions to replace the vague ideas of the past. I took risks with exercise and other aspects in the trial and error process that nobody else has been prepared to take, and there have been many periods where I experienced pain and or fatigue for several months at a time before I was able to identify why, and then I described how I did it so that researchers could check the methods, and doctors could treat the problems which were not responding to treatment before, and so that 200 million patients could benefit from the improvement.
I didn’t do it so that other people could copy me and take the credit, and call me a worthless fringy kook.
I was not aware that others were copying me until the past few years, but now I am. I can’t predict what will happen in future, but time will tell.

I am a confident, and not anxious, and I don’t get depressed, and I don’t worry about symptoms, disease, or death, and if it was not for the fact that I had health problems in 1975 that were not responding to medical treatment I would never have read, or even opened the cover of a medical book. However, from time to time since then it has been necessary, and I have produced ways of managing those problems, until now I can do that without difficulty, and I publish my ideas to protect my intellectual property, and to show other patients how I did it. I don’t tell them what to do. There are many ways of treating disease, and people now have my methods to choose from, and many do. e.g. here and here.

Leadership

Leadership is about setting goals and showing how they can be achieved, not by waiting for someone else to do it for you, or giving up because of criticism from fools.

The leader is the person who other people follow, or copy. See here.

Facts versus opinion

I value facts far more than opinion because proven facts are always the same, whereas opinions can be influenced by countless things and can change from minute to minute. In that regard I once met Sir Mark Oliphant to get an independent and unbiased view of The Posture Theory. He had previously worked on the Manhattan Project where the atomic bomb was developed, and was Australia’s top scientist who was living in a North Adelaide Nursing home at the time, and I asked him what the thought of that idea. He said that it appeared to him to be interesting, but he wasn’t in a position to comment with any authority so he would ask his medical colleagues, and later told me that they couldn’t give an opinion because the whole area of undetectable illness was a bottomless pit of mystery.

However, I have since had my book reviewed by a psychologist who questioned and contradicted almost every conclusion here, and later a Wikipedia editor who made 80 nitpicking criticisms of one essay here.

The most common comment I get from unbiased people is that it is a good, logical, and sensible idea, but some display their extreme bias by reacting with hostility and resentment and rejecting the idea, just because they heard the name of it, without even bothering to go past the first paragraph.

Another fact to consider is that it took me four years to determine causes and treatment methods for chronic fatigue, and then posture and health, and two years to scientifically research chronic fatigue and exercise, and twenty three years to develop a method of reliably relieving abdominal pain, and yet critics can give their opinions in a few seconds.

A quick summary of my research

In 1975 when I had numerous health problems, which included chronic fatigue, I would be told such things as . . .  ‘there was no evidence of disease’ and  . . . ‘we all get tired, that is normal’, and . . .  ‘it is normal for the pulse rate to increase with exercise so ignore it’.

I knew that my symptoms were completely different to normal so I decided to study and describe them in detail so that doctors would be able to recognise the differences.

In 1982 I explained my ideas to Tony Sedgewick, who was the head of the South Australian Institute for Fitness Reseach and Training. A few weeks later  he invited me to design and co-ordinate a research project where I was able to scientifically prove that the symptoms were real and physically based, and that a specific type of exercise regime could improve the health of some patients providing the details which I defined were applied.

Nowadays, if anyone wants to know the details they need to go to university to study and learn about them.

However, in 2007 I joined Wikipedia and added some information, but two editors argued that I was a non-notable person who did not have university qualifications, and was not a doctor, and that information about me was not in top quality research journals, so they said that my research did not deserve any space at all in Wikipedia here.

Nevertheless, my ideas are in many Wikipedia pages, including the chronic fatigue syndrome. e.g. here.

My reasons for studying my own health problems

In 1975 I had a range of health problems which my doctor was unable to diagnose  or treat effectively so I decided to determine the cause myself. I eventually found that there was a great deal of controversy about the nature of those problems, and that nobody in the world understood them or could treat them in any reliable way.

However, as far as I was concerned I had everything to gain by trying to solve those problems, and nothing to lose, because there would be no shame in failure, because everyone else was failing anyway.

Since then I have had critics who want the public to believe that I was wasting my time, and that they have some sort of marvellous and valuable knowledge. Consequently, critics have never bothered me in the least, because I have contributed a vast amount of knowledge to the subject, and they have contributed none.

How I acquired medical books to read

I was able to determine the cause of most of my health problems within a few years, and had actually cured some of them, and developed methods of relieving or managing most of them. However, some of the problems were chronic, and hence would recur for various reasons, so, from time to time, I would begin to study medicine again. During that time I didn’t have much money so I purchased medical books from garage sales which were so old that nobody else wanted them, so I could buy them for 50 cents each. Occasionally I would attend book sales where I would buy old ones for $2 each, and on rarer occasions I would pay slightly more at antique shops.

My collection of medical books

At one stage I owned more than 300 medical books, which I kept in the book shelves of my own home, until about 10 years ago, when I decided to stop studying medicine and sold half of them to nurses, medical students, and members of the public.

My collection included about 15 types of medical dictionary, such as the Dorland’s Illustrated medical dictionary from 1976, which is one of the best in the world, and one of the best medical text books called Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine from 1966. I also had a 12 volume set of the British Encyclopedia of Medical Practice by Lord Horder, who was the queens personal doctor. The dictionaries included the A-Z of medicine, a dictionary of symptoms, a nurses dictionary, and books such as The Modern Family Doctor from 1928 and The Illustrated Family Doctor of 1935, etc, and I had several books of anatomy, including Gray’s anatomy, and books from many of the medical specialties including some which covered them all such as “The Specialties in General Practice” from 1951.

Although there are changes in medical ideas and practice, the basic problems and principles are all the same, often where the only change is in the terminology, and if I wanted more  information, all I had to do was go the medical library at the University of Adelaide, and read research journals from the nineteenth century, or the latest ones, or books from all periods in history , but of course I also had several of my own books about medical history, but most of the time I didn’t need them, because I couid trace the history of medicine myself by reading my own books which covered each and every decade of the twentieth century.

Why I purchased so many dictionaries

One of the reasons for purchasing a lot of medical dictionaries was because in the first few decades of my study I had a lot of severe abdominal pain which was related to the number of times I leaned forward to read. As you can appreciate, I often avoided that pain by reading one word definition in a dictionary, or one paragraph, or one clue or fact in a book at a time, and then laying on my back and thinking about the implications for many hours at a time. However, after 38 years I finally tried writing and then typing while standing up, and then learned to use a computer, and experimented with it’s height. Eventually I used it with the keyboard placed above the desk on a platform 12 inches high, so that it was level with my elbow, and the screen  at eye height, so that I didn’t have to lean forward to read. I have only had one brief period of severe abdominal pain in the fifteen years since, and was able to identify the cause and cure it within 2 weeks. See here and here.

My critics

Some people tried to tell me lies about the history of medicine, but they were making utter fools of themselves because I knew a lot more about it than they did, and some had the cheek to criticise me, and act as if they knew more than I did, after reading one paragraph in one modern dictionary, which would have taken them less than 2 minutes to read. One of the most naive and ridiculous criticisms was that the references which I used in an article  were “old”, and “obsolete” etc. but  I had actually searched through older books to find useful clues to understanding and treating my own ailments more effectively, which were not available in modern text books.

My biography

One of the first ideas which I can remember was “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” . . . It seemed so reasonable to me that it became an established way that I related to other people, and I always found it easy to make friends.

Later, as a teenager, I was always involved in one activity or another, such as sport, and the other members and their families became my friends.

At school I was educated to regard scientifically proven facts as being as reliable as it is possible to be, and to be skeptical of opinion, no matter who said it, or how many people said something.

My father left school at primary school level, and my mother in second year high school, so I was more educated than both of them by the age of 14. I often noticed that my mother would remind my father that she had two years more education than him, and it struck me as curious that he seemed to feel bad about that, because, as far as I was concerned, two years of schooling didn’t change a persons basic intellect, and was just a time factor.

In my latter two years at high school I took part in classroom discussions every Friday afternoon, which is where I acquired a confidence in arguments, and which I always found entertaining, and often amusing.

I didn’t study a lot, but in fifth year I decided to spend the first term concentrating on Chemistry, and to my surprise, topped the class in the first term exam.

Soon after leaving high school, a teacher told me that I came second top of the class in the matriculation exams. As I didn’t get straight A’s I asked him how I managed to do that, and he said that I was one of the few students who passed all six subjects, so my total score was higher than those who gained higher grades in only four or five subjects.

I then received a card inviting me to enrol in various courses at the Adelaide University, and a scholarship to study optometry in Melbourne. If the optometry course was available locally I would probably have accepted it, but at that age I didn’t wish to leave home and move to another city.

A few years later I had an argument with a man about twice my age, and brought him to tears, which was not my intention, and which gave me no pleasure, because I preferred to be a sociable person, and decided that I would not argue with anyone again, at least not to such an extent.

When I was 19 years old I applied for, and was offered three scholarships to attend a course in group work (group psychology) at the South Australian Institute of Technology, as part of community leadership training. One was from the National Fitness Council, another from the State Government Department of Community Welfare, and a third from the Commonwealth Government of Australia. I accepted the latter.

As one of the interviews ended and the panelists were walking out of the room I asked him why I found it so easy to get scholarships. He looked at me with amazement, as if the answer to the question was obvious, and said that it was because I was over-qualified. I assume that he meant that a person with my education should have been doing a diploma or degree course at university, and not just a certificate course at the Institute of Technology, but I was only interested in the subject, so the place of study didn’t concern me.

There were various topics in the course which included sociology, politics, individual and group psychology, creativity, conformity, and social resistance to change etc.

It was a one year course which I completed in four years part time, with a request to continue, but I declined.

Since then the Institute of Technology has been merged with the University of South Australia, when I was invited to become an alumni, which I accepted.

I may add more information later.