Chapter
II
What Is Medicine?
Medical history covers a vast
segment, if not the whole, of man’s existence.
Contrary to this acknowledged fact, historians
persist in dating “reliable” medicine no earlier than Hippocrates! The REASON for this is significant!
The year 500 B.C., is the edge of a
precipice in history. Beyond this date
lies a vast abyss of human experience heavily charged with the odious
phenomenon of supernatural intervention.
Within this abyss, medicine was an
art! The modern explanation is that
since 500 B.C., it is a SCIENCE! Such a
sudden transformation would be a miracle
in itself! Yet, this hypothesis has
been generally accepted — and readily so.
The truth of history is that THERE
HAS BEEN NO SUCH TRANSFORMATION! The
practice of medicine (i.e., the use of and dependence on chemotherapy and
surgery to treat the sick) has remained consistent
from its origin! One reason this
has not been easily recognized is that the consistency of medicine lies in its inconsistency. Eras APPEAR to come and go; major transformations APPEAR to have
occurred.
Notice the comment of one
historian: “The development of [this]
science has never been continuous,
nor even progressive, but rather like a tangled, tortuous line . . .” (Garrison, History of Medicine, p. 45).
The history of medicine is a history
of human fallibility and error — based on a supernatural foundation. The
practice of medicine basically has never changed — only the APPROACH to
medicine has suffered a traumatic transformation!
At times in history medicine has enjoyed
respect and honor. At other times, as
the dregs of degradation, it was considered but a grisly extension of
witchcraft by its contemporaries!
Of recent date, medicine has even
received distinction as a science. In fact, since 1935 — the time of the
acceptance of the antibiotic — medicine has been referred to exclusively as a science. Since the practice of medicine is closely
associated with, and currently employs many actual sciences such as chemistry,
physics, physiology, etc., it is generally assumed that medicine is also a
legitimate science.
However, medicine is not a true science, but an ART!
Notice this comment!
Medicine is not only a science; it is
also AN ART. Science is primarily analytic, art primarily synthetic. And medicine is likely to remain AN ART, however hard we may try to make it more
and more scientific . . . . For
medicine deals not with impersonal atoms, elements . . . but with humans . . .
. In practice he [the physician] deals not with disordered metabolisms,
specific infections . . . but with sick human individuals. Even the effect of digitalis, or antibiotics, will partially depend on
the human relationship between the doctor and his patient, not to speak of
treatment of the “psychosomatic”
diseases that will usually form from 50 to 70 per cent of the doctor’s
practice. Science, so far, has
contributed little to this aspect of the doctor’s work (Ackerknecht, A Short History of Medicine, p. XVI).
Certainly, the practice of medicine
is associated with numerous sciences, and has for its province the treatment of
disease, but this does not insure its
role as a specific science. Even
the word “medicine” or, in the Latin, medicina
(from the Latin mederi, to heal)
actually means the ART OF HEALING! Once
again, the religiously-oriented foundation of medicine is interjected as healing has traditionally been the
prerogative of the supernatural.
Even a historian of renown as Herodotus, writing centuries nearer its
origin, describes this practice as “the
art of medicine” (Herodotus, The
History of the Greek and Persian Wars, ii, p. 84).
Most medical historians are doctors,
and consequently take a subjective view of the subject. It is their desire to be rated on a par with
the sciences — not just a fellow traveler.
This causes them to disclaim their heritage
and not allow “modern” medicine to be subjected to association with its ancient
counterpart! Throughout history,
medicine has unquestionably been an art,
which was dependent upon the supernatural. Such a relationship in any facet of life is
odious to our society. We pride
ourselves on emancipation from superstition.
Therefore, every effort has been made to discredit the ancient
supernatural origin of medicine, and to assume an empiric beginning of recent
date: the Age of Hippocrates. Whether
recognized or not, this is the reason Hippocrates was chosen the Father of
Medicine! Hippocrates, should he know
of the appellation, would be quite surprised indeed!
Nevertheless, the age of Hippocrates
has become a milestone to the medical historian because it was then among the
ancient Greeks that the first complete
separation of religion and medicine took place. It was they who first sought to remove the supernatural from
medicine and make it solely dependent upon observation and human reason. THIS STEP HAS BEEN REGARDED AS THE MOST
IMPORTANT OCCURRENCE IN THE LONG HISTORY OF MEDICINE!
However, it was a step that was not
maintained, for although the Greeks treated medicine as an empirical practice,
it was not held at this level! One is
led to believe that from the Golden Age of Greece, medicine has continued
onward and upward. But such is not the
case! After the decline of Greece,
medicine returned to the realm of mysticism, “from which only after the lapse
of centuries was it rescued . . . and finally nurtured into the medicine of
today . . .” (Haggard, H.W., Mystery, Magic, and Medicine, p. 29).
To properly understand the history
of medicine — what it originally was, as
well as what it is today — it is necessary to understand the break with the
ancient world and the supernatural.
Actually it is not so much a definite break with the spirit world as a
continual effort to wrench away!
Originally, from the days of the Old
Kingdom of Egypt, the practice of medicine was supernaturally sponsored. Medicine
was exclusively in the hands of the priests! “. . . the priests were the sole
possessors of physico-medical knowledge. . . .
It was necessary before gaining mastery over the powers of nature to
become initiated into the mysteries. . . .”
Once duly initiated, the priest “was able to practice medicine” (Magnus,
Superstition In Medicine, pp. 9-11).
This had been the strict regime of
medical practice for over 1500 years!
Yet, Hippocrates, apparently, sought to change it! WHY?
This question has never been fully answered!
“It has never been fully explained why all of a sudden, more than twenty-five hundred years ago,
a small group of people in the Eastern Mediterranean took this important and radical step in human thought”
(Ackerknecht, A Short History of Medicine,
p. 42).
The departure from the old ways was
revolutionary, but it did not occur overnight.
“The change in opinion was rather wrought by a gradual recession from
the idea that the gods interfered with the proper course of man’s bodily
functions” (Magnus, Superstition In
Medicine, p. 16). Although
initiated about the fifth century B.C., the overthrow of the ancient period is
not considered complete until about the sixth century A.D. It was during this period of time that an
amazing revolution, (possibly begun by Hippocrates) took place.
The understanding of this important
period bridges the gap between our age based on the physical, the empirical,
and the ancient world, which relied on the intervention of the
supernatural! History teaches that the methods used to treat the ill did not
change! Only the APPROACH to
medical practice was altered. “This
great discovery was not itself a cure or a means of preventing disease; it was merely a new way of studying disease.” In brief it was a NEW “PHILOSOPHY” (Haggard,
The Doctor in History, p. 59). The empirical
approach is so vastly different from the supernatural that man has deceived
himself into believing the system and the principles underlying the two
practices are also at equal extremes.
By 500 B.C., the practice of medicine under the ancient
system had deteriorated seriously! “The decadence of the arts
and sciences was accompanied by
a deterioration of
medicine also” (Castiglioni, A History of Medicine, p. 62). Wars,
political upheavals, natural catastrophes, and other traumatic events had
taken their toll. Medicine had openly become the tool of
charlatans, a superstitious farce!
It is within this hopeless
environment, just prior to Hippocrates, “we find the various branches of
medicine engrossed chiefly by the priests, among whom a spirit of rivalry started up. . . . Thus these temples became
progressively converted into schools of medicine, varying in excellence, as they did in reputation, exhibiting
instances of successful practice, or the
reverse. . . .” (Hamilton, The
History of Medicine, Surgery and
Anatomy, p. 41-42).
During this period fewer and fewer
cures were reported. When unsuccessful
at one temple-hospital, the ill were forced to seek cure at another. And the age-old method continued to falter
until Greece realized something was wrong — the
system they had inherited was failing!
“Thus the foundation was laid for that great revolution in medicine . . . which,
by detaching medicine from the science of theology, emancipated it by degrees
from . . . superstition” (ibid., p.
42).
Suddenly man realized he was lost! For centuries man had depended on the
authority of the supernatural to guide him.
It had now become obvious to many that whatever contact the ancients had
had with the spirits was rapidly vanishing.
No longer did the priests command daily contact with the supernatural.
Having relied on such a relationship
for centuries, the absence of it left mankind hopelessly adrift. No one knew where to turn. It is to this era of desperation that we owe the dawn of philosophy.
Questions often asked by the Sophists of the fifth century B.C.,
amply demonstrate how totally lost and confused they were. The apex
of intellectual curiosity reached at that time only enabled them to ask
feebly: “Is truth really attainable?
Was there a first cause of things?”
(Selwyn-Brown, The Physician
Throughout The Ages, p. 46). After
3500 years of human history, this is the helpless state in which man found
himself! This pitiful condition is
often misinterpreted to be genius,
when it is nothing more than IGNORANCE and DESPERATION!
The Greeks faced a dilemma — the
result of which would be the medical heritage of ages to come. They had inherited an approach to medicine, which was now failing to work. Hippocrates never lost faith in the efficacy
of drugs and surgery. But he did lose faith in dependence on the
supernatural to guide him in the use of medicine — as the mysteries taught
the ancients to do.
Hippocrates simply resorted to the
only alternative, which remained.
Stripped of supernatural intervention, it became necessary to depend solely on the principle of careful
observation guided by human intuition. So, “all the knowledge that
physicians have gained of disease since the time of
Hippocrates has been
acquired by following the principle he laid down
— careful observation” (Haggard, The Doctor in History, p. 67).
The belief in this new approach to
life gained prominence until it eventually dominated Europe by the sixth
century, A.D. Its popularity was to alternately rise and wane during the
next twelve to fourteen centuries, but it was definitely here to stay. Today, of course, solely the empirical
method is acceptable.
The age of Hippocrates was a beginning, not the beginning! It is
unrealistic to look to this ancient Greek as the originator of medicine. Historians wrongly assert that the Greeks
discovered the art of thinking, founded our civilization, art, science, and medicine (see Selwyn-Brown, The Physician Throughout The Ages, pp.
46, 68).
However, a definite break with the
past did occur between 500 B.C., and A.D. 500 — beginning with the Age of Hippocrates! This was a strange, but a general phenomenon, affecting the
approach to all facets of life. In
regard to medicine, supernatural intervention and authority were discarded in
favor of observation as weighed by human reason.
Contrary to opinion, this did not change the actual practice of
medicine! Physicians continued to
fervently believe in the use of basic medical procedures: MEDICATIONS and SURGERY. The notable alternative was the deletion of meaningless mysticism, which
had developed between 1500-500 B.C. As
we will see, medical practice was more nearly reverting to the type of practice
originally developed. Even the Greeks
soon realized that empty incantations have no effect on disease. The newly independent field of medicine
found it necessary to supply its own philosophy: Empiricism.
In spite of the efforts of medical
historians to trace the commencement of modern medicine to a more recent
“scientific” origin, this ancient practice was a fundamental ART developed in
the Old Kingdom of Egypt; it was
still an art in the time of Hippocrates
and it remains basically the same art
today — not a true science! Over
this vast expanse of time, only the
approach to medicine has changed.
Chapter 3
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