Therapeutic nihilism


Therapeutic nihilism is a contention that it is impossible to cure people or societies of their ills through treatment.
In medicine, it was connected to the idea that many "cures" do more harm than good, and that one should instead encourage the body to heal itself. Michel de Montaigne espoused this view in his Essais in 1580. This position was later popular, among other places, in France in the 1820s and 1830s, but has mostly faded away in the modern era due to the development of provably effective medicines such as antibiotics. However, a contemporary version of therapeutic nihilism is defended by Jacob Stegenga, which he calls gentle medicine.

History

Around the late 19th century, therapeutic nihilism gained some prominence among medical professionals. Proponents of this view claimed that every man should be his own physician through democratization of knowledge. Cultural critic Matthew Arnold was quoted as saying that “the stream of tendency of modern medical thought was toward a therapeutic nihilism.”
The most preferred approach to medicine at the time was what was sometimes called active medication, in which therapies were given acutely and would be expected to have dramatic effects. Active medication represented, to some degree, the cutting edge of existing medical thought, which also led to assumptions and inaccuracies. For example, when cocaine was first discovered, it was described in medical literature to be useful in conditions ranging from are required, avoiding those twin traps of over-treatment and therapeutic nihilism."