Medici

“ But He who knows the heart knows its disease, and, as the Good Physician, if we give ourselves unreservedly into his hands to be cured, He will give that medicine which his perfect knowledge of our case prescribes. ”

“ The great bulk of his fraternity went through their studious, conscientious, hard-working, and not infrequently heroic lives under the contented conviction of having to deal with two principal facts—disease and medicine—both accessible through study. To them the imponderable factor of the patient represented such or such an aggregation of material—muscle, nerve, blood, brawn, bone, and tissue—which might be counted upon to respond to such and such a treatment in such and such a manner, with very slight variation. The Doctor envied them their simplicity of faith. ”

“ As we have said before, during the dark ages medical knowledge was confined to the clergy, and the same individuals officiated both as priests and physicians. But at length medicine became a separate profession, and the treatment of physical diseases was assigned to one class of men, and the care of moral and religious matters to another. ”

“ While the practice of medicine is so vast and extensive a field, that it has been found necessary to subdivide it amongst physicians, surgeons, accoucheurs, apothecaries, oculists, aurists, dentists, men for the gout and men for the gravel, one for the belly and another for the brain, these reformers seem to regard medical knowledge and medical practice as in a nutshell,—as already perfect and complete. ”

“ Through them light flamed out in every direction to illuminate the dark places of American medicine until it became possible for American physicians to feel a well-founded pride in the progress of their profession. ”

“ The physician is, alas! too often powerless to contend against the ills that are raging around us. But, really, we can not expect physiology to cure incurable diseases and make men immortal; its mission is to discover the truth, and it is for the physician to apply the lessons of the new truth to the treatment of diseases. Who can say seriously that modern medicine, enlightened by the great physiological discoveries of this and former centuries, is not superior to the medicine of the middle ages? The circulation of the blood was discovered by vivisection. ”

“ We have already said, and it seems to deserve repetition here, that during most of these centuries in which the Papal Physicians were among the most distinguished discoverers in medicine, the term medicine included within itself most of what we now know as physical science. ”

“ It is often thought that medicine is the curative process. It is no such thing; medicine is the surgery of functions, as surgery proper is that of limbs and organs. Neither can do anything but remove obstructions; neither can cure; nature alone cures. Surgery removes the bullet out of the limb, which is an obstruction to cure, but nature heals the wound. So it is with medicine; the function of an organ becomes obstructed; medicine, so far as we know, assists nature to remove the obstruction, but does nothing more. ”

“ Medicine was originally the business of the priests, and for thousands of years it was under the influence of mystic and superstitious ideas which were connected with religious dogmas. However, two thousand years ago the great physicians of classic antiquity made a serious effort to provide a solid base for medical practice by a thorough anatomic and physiological study of the human frame. ”

“ Therefore a physician should study as many allied branches of (science or philosophy) as possible. The physician who studies the Science of Medicine from the lips of his preceptor, and practises medicine after having acquired experience in his art by constant practice, is the true physician, while any other map dabbling in the art, should be looked upon as an impostor. ”

“ And this is what the physician has to do, and in this the art of medicine consists: for medicine may be regarded generally as the knowledge of the loves and desires of the body, and how to satisfy them or not; and the best physician is he who is able to separate fair love from foul, or to convert one into the other; and he who knows how to eradicate and how to implant love, whichever is required, and can reconcile the most hostile elements in the constitution and make them loving friends, is a skilful practitioner. ”

“ It is therefore peculiarly true of the wise and skillful physician, that when he dies much wisdom will die with him. And the student of medicine always finds, when he comes to actual practice, that disease, in the sick chamber, is a very different thing from what he supposed it to be when listening to descriptions of it in the lecture-room. ”

“ No better means of encouraging, fostering, and patronizing medical science could be thought of than to give the prestige and the emoluments of physician to the head of the Church to important makers of medicine in every generation. ”

“ I have learned, and am still learning, the care of the eyes and how to operate upon them; as to medicine, the physicians, however good, do not surpass those I have already known; and as I do not believe it important that a young physician should familiarize himself with a great variety of curative methods, I try to observe carefully the patient and his disease rather than to remember the medicaments applied in special cases. Surgery and midwifery are poorly provided, but one has a chance to see many interesting cases. ”

“ A certain physician was so fond of administering medicine, that, seeing all the phials and pill-boxes of his patient completely emptied, and ranged in order on the table, he said, "Ah, sir, it gives me pleasure to attend you,—you deserve to be ill." ”

“ It is hardly surprising that the process of rationalisation should often centre round the relation of the patient to medicine, the social institution which has to do with disease. In searching for something by means of which to explain his troubles, the patient is apt to fix upon the advice and measures given or recommended by his physician or physicians. ”

“ Arriving now at the surgery of this Age, we find that matters were more chaotic than in other departments of medicine, and for reasons which are easily given and appreciated. While, ordinarily, external diseases are more easily discerned than internal, and while in a corresponding degree they can be more satisfactorily treated; while, in other words, external pathology has ordinarily taken precedence of internal in professional as in lay minds, this view seems to have been inverted for a time during the Middle Ages. ”

“ To this end must be added the one thing needful, personal fitness, sagacity in recognizing the peculiarities of individual cases, and in adapting the treatment of them, hygienic, dietetic, and medicinal, to the special requirements of each. In a word, the physician must never forget that he has a patient as well as a disease to treat. ”

“ Thus skilful physicians, when they observe what they deem to be well-known diseases, do not apply a remedy, but wait their time, attending upon the sick man, and administering to him such soothing appliance as they can, to the intent that the disease may neither be aggravated by neglect or despair, nor may reject the medicine applied too early, for if an inexperienced physician touch it prematurely, it will never come to a head, just as even an apple, if shaken from the tree while yet unripe, soon withers. ”

“ The following proverb, although it originated in India, is well worthy of acceptance in every part of the world: “When you are ill the physician will be to you a father; when you have recovered from your illness you will find him a friend; and when your health is fully re-established he will act as your protector.”
On a previous page the statement has been made that the science and art of medicine developed in ancient Greece quite independently of any influence that might have been exerted by the teachings of the physicians of India. ”

“ How weak appears the reasoning of many great physicians, when we examine it, not in their works, but on the dead body. Medicine was for a long time excluded from the circle of the exact sciences; it will have a right to be associated with them, at least in the diagnostics of diseases, when we shall every where unite to accurate observation, an examination of the changes our organs undergo. ”

“ For them a little glance at even a few of the realities of medical teaching in the thirteenth century will show at once what a castle of the imagination they have been living in.
Only those who are thoroughly and completely ignorant of the real status of medical teaching in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries continue to hold these absurd opinions as to the nullity of medieval medicine and surgery. ”

“ Among the physicians belonging to the latter half of the thirteenth and the first quarter of the fourteenth century there is one whose proper place in the history of medicine is by no means easy to determine, and who yet played a part of no small importance. ”

“ Many practitioners, indeed, hold every thing that is in the least theoretical, in great contempt. They 3alledge, that a physician possesses all the knowledge requisite in medicine, who is acquainted with particular remedies which will infallibly cure particular diseases. Could such remedies be discovered, their reasoning would indeed hold good; and medicine, which, of all arts, is in reality the most difficult, would be the easiest. ”

“ The beauty and blessing of medical mission work will be better understood if we contrast it with prevailing ideas about medicine. Until about fifteen years ago there were no Persian doctors who had become such from the study of books on medical science. ”

“ It conveyed to many the impression that medicine might readily be learned in the course of a few months, and thus offered the temptation to inferior men to choose the career of physician; and yet, on the other hand, it infused into the art the essentially Roman characteristics of orderliness, simplicity and efficiency. Anatomy, for example, was studied only so far as a knowledge of this department of medicine was necessary to render the physician familiar with the location, general character and relations of the different organs. ”

“ A clergyman who has a knowledge of the medical profession and of medicine, in speaking of the importance of such teachers, says: "Moreover, from their relation to the sick and suffering, from their habit of analyzing the mental and moral states of their patients, and from the deep, tender sympathy which sincere, God-fearing physicians have for suffering human beings, they are placed in a much closer relation to the people than any other vocation could give them. ”

“ The whole town is friendly to a physician. வைத்தியத்தில் இரண வைத்தியமும், வயதில் எவ்வனமும் நல்லது. As regards medical science, surgery—in regard to age, youth are preferable. வைத்தியனே உன்னையே குணமாக்கு. Physician, heal thyself. வைத்தியம் செய்தவன் எல்லாம் வைத்தியன். Every medical practitioner is a physician. வைத்தியம் கொஞ்சமாகிலும் தெரியாத பேர்கள் இல்லை. There is none that does not know, at least, a little of medicine. வைத்தியன் மருந்திலும் கைமருந்தே நலம். Domestic medicine is preferable to that of a physician. வைத்தியன் பெரிதோ மருந்து பெரிதோ? Which is greater, a physician or his medicine? ”

“ Many physicians know a great deal more about religious matters than they do about medicine. They have read the Bible ten times as much as they ever read any medical author. They have heard scores of sermons for one medical lecture to which they have listened. They often hear much better preaching than the average minister, for he hears himself chiefly, and they hear abler men and a variety of them. They have now and then been distinguished in theology as well as in their own profession. ”

“ Honour the physician for the need thou hast of him: for the most High hath created him.
38:2. For all healing is from God, and he shall receive gifts of the king.
38:3. The skill of the physician shall lift up his head, and in the sight of great men he shall be praised.
38:4. The most High hath created medicines out of the earth, and a wise man will not abhor them. ”

“ World be advertis’d of the weighty Business this Doctor is concern’d in. Others by their Equipage, eminent Houses, and occasioning one and the same Patient, to repair needlesly to them twenty or thirty times, manifest a Decoy even taken Notice of by the Vulgar. These few disingenuous Ways, do here purposely bring on Board, omitting many others, to convince the Publick, that the only Means for a Physician to advance himself honourably to Practice, is by discovering his real Abilities in curing Diseases, by quick, certain, and pleasant Medicines ”

“ People in acute diseases may sometimes be their own physicians; but in the chronic, the cure must ever depend chiefly upon the patient’s own endeavours. The Doctor has also passed over the Prophylaxis, or preventive part of Medicine, very slightly, though it is certainly of the greatest importance in such a work. ”

“ With this list before him, the reader will have all the material necessary to understand the declaration that there is no series of men whose names are connected together by any bond in the history of medicine, even as members of the faculty of our oldest medical schools, that represent so much achievement and original investigation in medical matters as the Papal Physicians. ”

“ Almost anyone who wished could set up as a physician, and those who were least fitted were often best able to secure a large number of patients by their cleverness, their knowledge of men, and their smooth tongues. The bishops of various dioceses met, and issued decrees forbidding anyone from practising medicine unless he was a graduate of the medical school of the neighboring University of Montpellier. ”

“ I use the word nursing for want of a better. It has been limited to signify little more than the administration of medicines and the application of poultices. It ought to signify the proper use of fresh air, light, warmth, cleanliness, quiet, and the proper selection and administration of diet—all at the least expense of vital power to the patient. ”