| THE TRAINING OF A PHYSICIAN.[1] |
By President DAVID STARR JORDAN,
LELAND STANFORD JR. UNIVERSITY.
IN mediæval times the physician was a compound of sorcerer and priest; distrusted by sorcerers lest he disclose the secrets of their trade; distrusted by priests lest he undo their work with the heathenism of sorcery. His operations were mystic, out of relation to cause and effect, for it was widely believed that the forces of the body are independent of bodily structures, and that sickness was a blow from the outside, a penalty for sin or lust or unbelief, not the expression of bodily derangement.
So the physician dealt with words as much as with medicines. Many Latin words held a magic power. By their use he could call up spirits, mostly evil, could put man to sleep or make a broomstick alive. Lest he carry these things too far, there were statutes forbidding the physician to act save in the presence of a priest. Besides words, he dealt in simples; each drug having potency over its particular disease. These drugs he would know by their signatures, the mark of the Almighty on them indicating their use. Thus a scrofulous-looking root would cure scrofula, snake-head or snake-root would cure snake bite; blood-root with red juice was good for the blood; celandine with yellow juice was marked for jaundice; liver-wort with liver-shaped leaves would heal the liver; eye-bright with an eye-spot in the flower would heal the eyes; bear's grease from hairy bears would cure baldness; a hair of the mad dog would relieve its venom. A red rag would cure inflammations. A drug which would give a headache would cure it. A long series of fancies and superstitions, which find their natural continuance in the electric belts and patent medicines of to-day.
Surgery was despised by medicine, and the little which was practised fell to the lot of barbers; with dirty knives and reckless hands surgery ended in gangrene and blood poisoning.
The success of the physician lay largely in the mystery of his operations, his Latin words and the red and blue flames which danced about the broths he concocted.
Meanwhile sanitation and diet were regarded as contrary to religion. Even the taking of medicine was sometimes forbidden as being a scheme to thwart God's purposes. Besides all this, the words
- ↑ Abstract of address, Cooper Medical College Commencement.
