This is the story of my life as a doctor and a scientist. Despite a
youthful ambition to become a jazz musician, I eventually studied
medicine and became a medical research scientist, taking up appointments
in Germany, Austria and finally in England. My reverence for the pursuit
of truth through the application of scientific methods, coupled with a
growing interest in the history of medicine during the Nazi era, did not
always endear me to my professional colleagues. At the time I was
appointed to the world's first chair in alternative medicine, this was
an area of health care that had never been studied systematically, and
was almost entirely dominated by outspokenly evangelic promoters and
enthusiasts -- among them, famously, HRH Prince Charles -- many of whom
exhibited an overtly hostile, anti-scientific attitude towards the
objective study of their favoured therapies. Clashes were inevitable,
but the sheer ferocity with which advocates of alternative medicine
would go in order to protect their field from scrutiny came as a
profound surprise. This memoir provides a unique insight into the
cutthroat politics of academic life and offers a sobering reflection on
the damage already done by pseudoscience in the field of medicine.