All of a sudden it is cold in Hong Kong. I suppose this happens every year, but it always catches me by surprise. Not long ago, I'm sure I was sweating my way through the streets of Central.  Now I'm afraid to go into the bathroom lest my feet snap freeze to the floor.

 

And almost as suddenly, I have the flu. This also happens about once a year and means the odd day watching daytime television.

 

I don't remember ever thinking very much about the flu in the past. But having the flu nowadays is different. With all the talk about H1N1 (swine flu), seasonal flu, inoculation, antiviral drugs and so on, it's hard not to take the sneezing and coughing a bit more seriously.

So I can't enjoy sitting around the house sniffling and watching DVDs. Instead I have to traipse down to Central to visit the doctor and find out what kind of flu I have.

Does the virus living in my throat have ancestors that lived in the throats of swine or chickens? Does it have a number? Could I be inoculated? And most importantly, could it kill me?

I am a big fan of doctors. It must be great to have a skill that really is useful. If you a have a problem raising cash or funding capital projects, then I could probably help. But I'm not much good with practical issues such as broken limbs and concussion. But doctors understand important things like human biology, and they know what can go wrong and how to fix it. They know what medication does, why it works and when it doesn't. They know how to deal with diseases, injuries, and all sorts of other problems. Of all the skills you could learn, medicine has got to be one of the most interesting and useful.

On the other hand, there are a lot of folks with no medical training out there also selling treatments and products. These guys also come out of the woodwork during the flu season, with their alternative approaches to illness. I have never actually visited an alternative medical practitioner, mostly because if I'm going to waste my money, I like to enjoy it. But the ideas and philosophy are popular with my colleagues, so I get to hear all about them quite regularly.

A colleague of mine explained to me last week that she was not planning to get a flu shot because she never gets flu anymore.

"Ever since I started meditation I haven't been sick," explained Katrina one afternoon.

"Really, ever since I bought these shoes, I haven't been sick either," I said, showing her my nice new shoes. Rather than trying to be funny, I could I suppose have tried to explain the difference between causation and correlation in detail, but I doubt she would be particularly interested.

"That's stupid", she said, "meditation has been known to protect against illness for centuries, it's based on ancient wisdom. That's why it works".

This is one of my favourite claims from the alternative medicine folks, that the crazy thing they are into is based on ancient wisdom. Presumably this is intended to increase the attractiveness of the alternative therapy, by contrasting it with that more modern idea - actual medicine. There are not many other fields in which the claim is made that some or other approach is old and should be taken more seriously.

"Sure you could buy one of those brand new computers, but this one is called the Commodore 64 and contains software written by ancient computer engineers" would not be a very effective sales technique.

Nor would: "Your new cars might have lots of fancy lights and shiny things, but this car contains suspension and brake pads from the early 20th century, designed by ancient auto mechanics".

So why in respect of something vastly more important, health, would the fact that a treatment is old technology be a plus?

The guys that came up with homoeopathy, chiropractic, acupuncture and reflexology and so on, knew substantially less about human biology than doctors do today. They were guessing. And they were wrong. Just like the guys that came up with the biblical creation myths, the geocentric model of the solar system, and bloodletting; all ideas that might have seemed sensible at the time, but have long since been superseded by hard facts.

But as I sit around popping my pseudoephedrine pills, waiting to hear the results of my swine flu test, I can't help reminiscing about the days when I didn't know that much about flu. Before all the detail was brought to my attention by Sars and swine flu. Not knowing the facts is a pleasant state of mind in times of danger. It might lead to a belief in woo-woo nonsense, but it sure would be relaxing.