MEDICAL HISTORY: A TRADITION OF
INCOMPETENCE:<br
by the vast majority of doctors right up through the
Victorian era was as likely to have no effect, harm you, or
even kill you as to cure you. Patients often healed in
spite of treatments.<br
breakthroughs of medical science in the 20th century, we
forget, just how abysmal medical treatments sometimes
were in the past.<br
reputable Renaissance doctors; enemas and blood-letting
topped the list of treatments by American doctors at the
time of the Americal Revolution; the completely
ludicrous theory of the body’s four humors (black bile,
yellow bile, etc.) was the most accepted theory of
health through the l800s, when cell pathology was
discovered. Many medieval doctors deemed “water-casting”
(i.e., eyeballing and sometimes tasting a urine sample)
as the leading guide to diagnosing
illnesses.<br
better chance of recovering if they prayed to (and truly
believe in) the toenail of Saint Peter. A relic as
placebo could easily surpass leaches on the hemorrhoidal
vein in efficacy. The last century has marked a
blizzard of breakthroughs (X ray, penicillin, open-heart
surgery, etc.), but as recently as the Civil War, it’s
estimated that half of the Union’s 350,000 casualties were
due to complications and diseases from unsanitary
treatment and half directly from the wounds. The famous
poet, Lord Byron, died in 1824, from overbleeding. His
doctors literally bled and purged him to death. President
Garfield died in l88l, apparently because of complications
from his doctors reaching unsterilized hands into his
wound to try to remove an assassin’s bullet.<br
did medical science ever spiral downward from the
relative high point of the Greeks into this pattern of
often imbecile care?<br
must go to the medieval Church, which forbade doctors
from performing surgery on live patients or from
dissecting corpses to learn about anatomy. The human body
was sacred; men of God shouldn’t touch “shameful
parts”. At the time, almost all the major medical schools
were located at Church-controlled universities, and
thus doctors were actually clergymen.<br
effect, doctors in the Middle Ages often knew as much
about the insides of the body as they did about the
insides of a Ford Taurus.<br
December 6th, 2003 at 2:30 am
Funny, despite all the breakthroughs in Medical
Science there still are an awfull lot of incompetent
Doctors out there. For a Doctor to have an educated
Patient is like a slap in the face to them. Good story,
can’t wait for part2
December 7th, 2003 at 2:00 pm
INCOMPETENCE (Part II):<br
historian W.J. Bishop states it a bit more elegantly: “This
meant that the sciences of anatomy and physiology,
which are the bedrock of all medical knowledge could
not be studied in a practial manner.”<br
consequence of this no-surgery-studied-at-school clause weas
that doctors training at universities in the Middle
Ages did little more than listen to pompous theorizing
about the four humors of the body. Complained
iconoclast doctor John of Salisbury back in the 12th
century: “(Doctors) will describe to you minutely the
origin, the progess and the cure of all diseases. In a
word, when I hear them harangue, I am charmed; I think
them not inferior to Mercury or Aesclepius, and almost
persuate myself that they can raise the dead. There is
only one thing that me hesitate; their theories run
directly opposite one another, as diffent as light to
darness.<br
was sounding the same theme: “Doctors,” states a
character in The Imaginary Invalid, “know the majority of
scholarly studies, know how to speak elegant Latin, know
all the ancient Greek names for the diseases, can
define them and categorize them. BUT, as for CURING
them, they know nothing at all. Listen to them speak,
these best-dressed men in the world; watch them heal,
these most ignorant of all men.”<br
say there weren’t medical breakthroughs prior to the
20th century. Of course there were: Hippocrates
(460-377 B.C.() could set a broken leg (and write an oath
forbidding doctors from seducing their patients); Fleming
Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564) diagrammed correct anatomy,
i.e., internal organs and veins; Frenchman Ambroise
Pare (1510-1590) — using compassion and common sense
— revolutionized surgical techniques and even
designed a functional prosthetic arm; Englishment William
Harvey (1578-1657) discovered that blood circulates,
pumped by the heart.<br
on these breakthroughs by exceptional doctors and
gloss over the pervasive failures. (Professional
courtesy apparently extends even to history.) SO in the
interest of fair play, we will recount some of the
lowlights of medical history and give “snapshots” of some
genuinely odd developments.<br