Petr Skrabanek: the Abominable No-Man

C&W COURSES & J R Coll Physicians Edinb 2019; 49: 65–9 | doi: 10.4997/JRCPE.2019.114 PAPER WORKSHOPS Petr Skrabanek: the abominable no-man HistorySeamus O’Mahony1 & Humanities Petr Skrabanek (1940–94) was a Czech-born doctor, polemicist and literary Correspondence to: scholar. He quali ed in medicine in Ireland, and spent most of his career Seamus O’Mahony Abstract at the Medical School of Trinity College Dublin. He was an outspoken critic Gastroenterology Unit of modern medicine, particularly of what he called ‘coercive healthism’. Cork University Hospital Skrabanek’s sceptical and iconoclastic ideas are more relevant today than Wilton ever. This essay aims to rekindle interest in his life and work. Cork Ireland Keywords: environmental tobacco smoke, healthism, medicalisation, Skrabanek Email: Financial and Competing Interests: No confl ict of interests declared [email protected] Introduction and biography his sharp pen was directed at population medicine and the apostles of lifestyle – those who preached the fallacy Petr Skranabek was born on 27 October 1940 in Náchod, of cheating death … the medical community began to Czechoslovakia.1 He entered Charles University in Prague adopt him as a gadfl y who roamed the world adding zip RCPE MSc courses in 1957, taking a degree in chemistry. He then became and controversy to otherwise anodyne meetings.2 The College offers two online courses completed a researcher at the Institute for Toxicology and Forensic Medicine in Prague. In 1962, he was appointed Head of the Skrabanek attacked screening, ‘risk-factor’ epidemiology part-time over 3 years, in partnership with the Toxicology Department in the Institute for Forensic Medicine and political attempts to control the lifestyles of individuals. University of Edinburgh. at Purkynĕ University in Brno, but resigned the following He argued that medicine had lost sight of its true purpose, year to enter the medical school there. In July 1968, he namely, the relief of suffering. He died of prostate cancer went to the Richmond Hospital Dublin (with his future wife, on 21 June 1994 at the age of 53 years; his polemical MSc Critical Care @Ed_CritCare_On Vera Capková) for a summer student elective. On 21 August book The Death of Humane Medicine and the Rise of Students will learn the essentials of the clinical 1968, Skrabanek was in County Sligo visiting the grave of Coercive Healthism3 was published a few months after his management of critically unwell adults, whilst developing WB Yeats when he heard the news that the Soviet army death. In 2018, Skrabanek was posthumously awarded the expertise in accessing, interpreting and integrating the had invaded Czechoslovakia. He decided there and then prestigious Stearne medal of the Royal College of Physicians findings of clinical research into clinical care. to stay in Ireland. He continued his medical studies at the of Ireland. Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, and qualifi ed in 1970. The course is aimed at doctors, nurses and allied He spent several years training in neurology in various Skrabanek’s infl uences health professionals seeking to develop as independent Dublin hospitals. In 1975 he joined the Endocrine Oncology practitioners and future leaders of healthcare change. Research group at the Mater Hospital Dublin as a senior Skrabanek’s most obvious infl uence was Ivan Illich, whose research fellow, and became an internationally recognised polemic, Medical Nemesis was published in 1974.4 The > rcpe.ac.uk/careers-training/msc-critical-care expert in the neurotransmitter substance P. In 1984, he joined book opened with the famous accusation, ‘The medical the Department of Community Health at Trinity College Dublin, establishment has become a major threat to health’. Illich MSc Internal Medicine @internalmeded funded by a grant from the Wellcome Foundation. He forged (1926–2002) was an Austrian-born priest, historian and a close personal and professional relationship with the head social philosopher. His core idea, argued over several Complementing the syllabus for MRCP(UK), students will of that department, Professor James McCormick, and spent books, was that industrialisation and institutionalisation develop their knowledge, understanding and professional the remainder of his career there. had robbed people of their freedom and handed over control practice of internal medicine, gaining skills in advanced of fundamental aspects of human life to professions.5 patient management and preparation for future audit, During the 1980s, Skrabanek forged a reputation as a In The Death of Humane Medicine (1994), Skrabanek research and publication. polemicist and critic of medicine. His provocative essays acknowledged Illich’s infl uence, devoting much of the fi rst appeared regularly in the Lancet; Robin Fox, who edited the chapter of the book to his ideas. But he differed from Illich The course is primarily for doctors early in their careers. journal from 1990 to 1995, wrote: in a fundamental way: Skrabanek was a Humean sceptic > rcpe.ac.uk/careers-training/msc-internal-medicine who believed in the rigorous application of scientifi c method. …by the mid-1970s he was gaining attention through a Although Illich filled Medical Nemesis with voluminous series of critical and witty letters in The Lancet, addressed footnotes and scientific references, he simply did not from the endocrine unit of a Catholic hospital. Increasingly, understand or revere science, and was gullible about the 1Consultant Physician/Gastroenterologist, Gastroenterology Unit, Cork University Hospital, Cork, Ireland MARCH 2019 VOLUME 49 ISSUE 1 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS OF EDINBURGH 65 S O’Mahony claims of alternative medicine, arguing, for example, for choose. Matters of daily living – habits, attitudes, sexuality, ‘more public support for alpha waves, encounter groups beliefs – they all become legitimate concerns of health and chiropractic’. promotionists’.3 Skrabanek’s objection to healthism was partly aesthetic. He was contemptuous of jogging and food Many of the critics of scientifi c medicine who emerged in the faddism, and observed that ‘simple minds, stupefi ed by the 1960s and 70s, such as Michel Foucault, were of the left. sterilised pap of television and the bland diet of Bowdlerised Skrabanek was unusual in that his natural political leaning culture and semi-literacy, are a fertile ground for the gospel was to a form of radical libertarianism. (The Death of Humane of new lifestyle’.3 Medicine was published by the Social Affairs Unit, a right- leaning British think tank with a strong libertarian ethos.) His Skrabanek noted that medicine had begun to shift its gaze libertarianism was formed by reading John Stuart Mill as a from the sick to the well: he called this ‘anticipatory’ medicine. student in Czechoslovakia: He distinguished this from traditional preventive medicine, which concerned itself with such matters as vaccination Mill’s concept of autonomy spells disobedience, non- and maintaining a supply of clean water. The cornerstone of compliance, rebellion. Attempts to coerce independent ‘anticipatory’ medicine is screening for disease. Skrabanek minds fail, because ‘they will infallibly rebel against the argued that there was little or no evidence of any benefi t yoke’. It was for good reason that Mill’s essay On Liberty for most forms of screening, and, furthermore, that this was banned by the communists. How eagerly it was read, ‘anticipatory’ medicine somehow managed to exempt in secretly copied typescripts, during my student years in itself from the ethical constraints that apply to traditional communist Prague!3 medicine.6 He believed that the coercion of entire populations to lead ‘healthy’ lifestyles, and to screen them for disease Skrabanek’s formative years instilled in him a life-long horror was a catastrophic error. of communism: he rebelled instinctively against any form of state intrusion into the private lives of its citizens. Medicine is not about conquering diseases and death, but about the alleviation of suffering, minimising harm, Healthism smoothing the painful journey of man to the grave. Medicine has no mandate to be meddlesome in the lives Skrabanek argued that the pursuit of ‘health’ was self- of those who do not need it.3 defeating. The medical profession, he wrote, provided the ‘theoretical underpinning of healthism – the doctrine of He argued that the ancient, almost mystical relationship lifestylism, according to which most diseases are caused by between doctor and patient was undermined by the State, unhealthy behaviour’.3 Individuals now had a moral duty to ‘which sees both the doctor and the patient as its servants’.3 maximise their health by maintaining a responsible lifestyle. Skrabanek believed that healthism fi lled the gap left by Trinity College and collaboration with religion in secular societies: James McCormick As an ersatz religion it has a wide appeal, especially Skrabanek was contemptuous of modern epidemiology, among the middle classes who have lost their links with particularly of what he called ‘riskfactorology’ or ‘black traditional culture and feel increasingly insecure in a box epidemiology’.7,8 This was an unusual position for an rapidly changing world. Healthism is embraced eagerly as academic working in a University Department of Community a path to surrogate salvation. If death is to be the fi nal full Health, but many in Dublin admired his bloodymindedness, stop, perhaps the inevitable can be indefi nitely postponed. and saw it as an instance of Trinity

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