Hugo Magnus

“ It was completely detached from nature, its great teacher, and irretrievably entangled in the subtleties of an uncertain philosophy. Its activity now depended exclusively upon the study of the ancients—by no means, however, upon that study in which an attempt was made to master the intellectual spirit of ancient medicine, but which consisted in a slavish adherence to the letter. Every decision of the ancients, without any regard to nature, was made a dogma, and he was the best physician who was most familiar with these dogmas, who understood best how to interpret them most keenly. ”

“ We do not reject chemistry because it originated in alchemy, we do not disregard astronomy because its roots are entwined with the teachings of astrology, and so in theology and medicine we look to the final issue. The statements set forth in this book should not be construed as reflecting the development of theology or medicine at the time, but as the belief of the people existing in these periods. Philosophy may have been pure, but if the mind of man was faulty the responsibility must not be laid at the door of science. ”

“ It was quite natural, in view of the exclusively theistic conception which in those times preoccupied the human mind, that the priests were the sole possessors of physico-medical knowledge; and naturally so. For when we consider the theory of life that prevailed at that period, who could have been better qualified to give information [10] to men regarding their own body as well as regarding nature in general, than the priest, the mortal representative of immortal gods? And who better qualified than the priest to invoke the aid of the heavenly powers in all bodily ailments? ”

“ The idea that philosophy has exerted any material influence upon superstition in medicine may appear strange to many. For how can it be possible that the science which teaches the laws of thought, which regulates our entire mental activity and guides it in the right direction, which points out to us the intricate path of medical theory and diagnosis—how is it possible that just this science should either take or have taken part in misleading or obscuring our medical perception? We do not by any means intend to impute any such effect to philosophy. ”

“ The Christian exorcists, in conjuring, only made use of prayer and of the name of Christ; these two factors were considered sufficient to cure the patient of his delusions, and they actually did so. Why they accomplished a cure has been explained very strikingly by Harnack. He says: “It is not the prayer that cures, but the praying person; not the formula, but the spirit; not exorcism, but the exorcist. Only in those cases in which the disease, as in numerous cases of the second century, had become epidemic and almost common, did ordinary and conventional means avail. ”

“ The world assumed the shape of an enormous hall upon which divine power, divine will, continuously acted from above. Farthest down was the world of the elements. In boundless distances above it moved the moon and the six other planets, each one in its transparent heaven. ”

“ History teaches us that human beings have arisen at all periods, in all ranks of life, and in cold blood have given currency to the wildest of theories. But the most interesting point is that at this day when, as we might believe, the advances in physical science have enlightened to some extent even the most unintellectual, Mrs. Eddy is able to find adherents, especially among the best classes of society, and to find them in such numbers that the authorities have been compelled to interfere in repressing the practises of this medical superstition. ”

“ This conception, which exhibits the universe rather as an organism than a mechanism, and regards the complexities and adaptations it displays rather as the results of gradual development from within than of an interference from without, is so novel, and at first sight so startling, that many are now shrinking from it in alarm, under the impression that it destroys the argument from design, and almost amounts to the negation of a Supreme Intelligence. ”

“ In accordance with this conception, which has been borrowed from a natural philosophy long since relegated to oblivion, the services both of physician and physic are to be rejected, and the treatment of the sick is to be carried on in such a manner that the patient, under supervision of an individual expert in such affairs, is merely to fix his mind on the spiritual, or divine, principle inherent in himself. ”

“ But science fought its way through the barriers of ignorance, misdirected zeal, and superstition. Altho there were physicians and “magicians,” who conformed to the views of the Church, the seed sown by the earlier schools of medicine slowly but surely began to put forth shoots, and the result was a tree of knowledge, the fruit of which may be observed in every modern insane asylum of the world, where the unfortunate sufferer is treated with kindness and skill, which, fortunately, often results in cure. ”

“ But as the inhabitants of heaven, like the inhabitants of the earth, were subject to whims, it happened very often, unfortunately, that they attended to their task of protecting the undisturbed development of the vegetative as well as the animal functions of the body in a very unsatisfactory manner, sometimes, in fact, even purposely neglecting it. Thus disturbances occurred in the regular course of organic life, and this brought diseases into the world. If, therefore, the gods were directly responsible for the appearance of disease, it was palpably their duty to effect its elimination. ”

“ However, this reproach is mitigated if we consider that medicine did not accord a home to superstition of its own free will, or even from a predilection for the heresies of other disciples, but it did so under compulsion; for the religious, the philosophical, the physical views which forced the entrance of superstition into medical science were almost always the views of a formidable party. It is a fact sufficiently demonstrated by history that powerful and far-reaching predilections of the popular mind resistlessly hurry along whatever is in their path. ”

“ But before attempting to inquire why the purest and most valuable fountains of all human [6] knowledge—religion, philosophy, and natural science—have at the same time become sources of medical superstition, it will be advisable to explain the character which medical science had assumed under the exclusive domination of theism, and how conditions shaped themselves when physico-mechanical philosophy appeared and began to do battle with the theistic conception of life. ”

“ Until the present more modern times medicine was condemned to the encumbrance of this rubbish, this list of odd and loathsome remedies, whose admission to the pharmacopœia was only due to the whim of a human mind that constantly hankers after the extraordinary and the miraculous. ”

“ Unitedly in their course through heaven the seven weave the threads of fate. Silently they weave the design of terrestrial life. Upon them depend not only summer and winter, rain and drought, but also the life and death of every living being; as determined by the constellation of their birth, such is each man, so will he live. Never do the heavenly bodies repeat precisely the same relative positions, and, therefore, never are two years, two days, two human beings, two leaves, completely identical.”
So far Troels-Lund. ”

“ The greatest triumph of modern medicine has consisted in unfettering the views of effete centuries, born of superstition and misconception, and in placing the treatment of the insane upon a humane, often even a curative, plane. As other afflictions of humanity were attributed to the agency of evil spirits, this was particularly the case with insanity; for if the evil one found it an easy task to control the corporeal acts of humanity, his power over the mental functions of the person afflicted was even greater. ”

“ The belief that God was the best physician, not only of the soul but of the body also, was deepened by the dissemination of Christianity. The sincerity of faith among the Christians of the first century was so intense that a great number of them believed that their bodily welfare could not be watched over more carefully than when it was commended exclusively to the care of God in all cases of sickness. ”

“ The Neo-Pythagoreans acted upon the principle that the practise of medicine was absolutely indispensable to the true philosopher, and that [96] every one, therefore, provided he had attained the required fitness by his intercourse with demons, was able to act as a physician. It is quite obvious that such ideas were bound to pave the way for the most abominable abuse and superstitions, and, naturally, what the Neo-Pythagoreans offered as the art of healing to the patients was nothing but a mixture of mysterious customs, conjurations, and witchcraft. ”

“ All schools of medicine, therefore, from the humoral pathology of the followers of Hippocrates to the so-called parasitism of the nineteenth century, have avoided as much as possible the acknowledgment that supernatural influences were active as pathological factors. Various as the principles of the countless medical schools may have been, they were all united in assuming as the starting-point of their speculations some material process of the body itself, in accordance with which they applied their therapeutic agencies. ”

“ Ancient as well as Christian philosophy was firmly pledged to a belief in demons, whose existence was supported by the sacred testimony of the Gospel. It is not astonishing, therefore, that the people should cling to their belief in various forms of supernatural interference with the functions of organic beings, and thus it may frequently have happened that a medically enlightened priest, fearing the opposition of a people eager after celestial medicine, sacrificed his scientific convictions to the caprices of a mistaken faith. ”

“ Mankind had entirely lost the conception that the ancients had attained worth and importance only in that they measured things by the standard of unbiased experience, and tested their conclusions according to the phenomena of nature as described from accurate observation of the sick.
It is quite obvious that superstition met with a well-prepared soil in a system of medicine that was overburdened with dogmas and degraded [121] into utter subserviency to a vainglorious philosophy. ”

“ It is admittedly true that the deeper we penetrate into the secrets of nature the more energetically the existence of a marvelous, intelligent will manifests itself as permeating all domains of nature. However, if this fact is not denied on principle, as modern materialism denies it, and proper allowance is made for it, a rehabilitation of teleology as a necessary factor of our theory of life would be the logical consequence. Of [20] course, this teleology would bear a stamp entirely different from that of antiquity and of the middle ages, which is recognized to be superstition. ”

“ The chief representative of Neo-Pythagorism was Apollonius, of Tyana, in Cappodocia, probably one of the most fantastic personages of all Greek and Roman antiquity. Venerated as a god by some of his contemporaries, such as Damis and Philostratus, his biographers, on account of his wisdom and of his extraordinary works, he is considered by others, on the other hand, as a magician engaged, like a common charlatan, in conjuring tricks. The opinions which posterity, down to modern times, has passed on Apollonius are of a similar nature. ”

“ We shall soon see that this is a repetition of what has occurred during all periods of human development. Even to-day, when the mechanical theory of life has won its greatest triumphs, and more than twenty centuries have passed since the great Hippocrates preached a theory of medicine, purified from all theistic and theurgic accretions, individuals are still met with who presuppose the therapeutic activity of God in all cases of disease as a self-evident fact. ”

“ Priesthood the Support of Medical Superstition.—The principal reason for a not quite reputable activity in the chosen representative of a deity is probably the fact that, with the appearance of a physico-mechanical contemplation of the world, the theistic theory of life, which until then had exclusive sway, was forced into a pitched battle with a newly formulated definition of nature. This struggle was carried on principally by the priesthood, who, as a matter of fact, had most to lose from the ascendency of a new theory of life which only reckoned with natural factors. ”

“ But natural philosophy once lost in such a labyrinth, an aberration of the perceptive powers can not fail to follow—at least, in certain domains of nature. As a matter of fact, this fallacious perception promptly made its appearance, and has proved the stumbling-block of science from its earliest days up to the present times. Occultism, mysticism, or whatever the names may be of the various forms of superstition, have sprung from these erroneous conceptions of natural science. ”

“ Very soon many cunning fellows arrived at the conclusion that the trade of a sacerdotal physician and conjurer might bring a profitable livelihood to its professor, even if this professor were not a priest but a layman. Thus there arose a special profession of sorcerers, miracle workers, and medicine-men, who protested with solemn emphasis that they were able to cure all physical as well as psychical ailments of their fellow men as thoroughly as the priests had done. ”

“ In the wide realm of philosophy there are only [90] certain points where we can detect a tendency to promote the development of medical superstition. This tendency appears in all endeavors which are made to explain natural phenomena solely in a speculative manner, or to build a theory of life upon a base of pure assumptions. Whenever such attempts were made manifest, and impressed philosophy into their service under the name of natural philosophy, it resulted in the wide predominance of medical superstition. ”

“ But when the ancient theory of life was demolished later on, and the Christian God of love had taken possession of the world, the belief in the fate-determining power of the stars was shaken, and centuries, followed during which Medicina Astrologica, altho it did not by any means disappear entirely, was forced more or less to the rear. Astrology did not become resurrected until scholasticism and dogmatism had held back the activity of the mind from independent investigation, thus bringing about the intellectual darkness which for centuries prevailed. ”

“ If we now ask how it was possible that a superstition like astrology could for centuries dominate Occidental medicine, and was even able to influence the best minds in its favor, an answer [183] to this question will not be as difficult as might appear at first glance. The very best and the most enlightened minds are always particularly affected by what is enigmatical and mysterious in the phenomena of life. They perceive the narrow limits set to our cognition of nature much more acutely and deeply than the average mind. ”

“ Man did not feel his way carefully from experiment to experiment, from observation to observation, until the general principle was found which inductively comprised a number of phenomena under one uniform principle of law, but the principle which was at the bottom of phenomena was fixed upon a speculative basis, and in accordance with this principle the phenomena were interpreted—as was done, for instance, in medicine in the case of humoral pathology. ”