THE DEAN AND THE DOCTORS,

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1879, 13 October 1913, Page 5

THE DEAN AND THE DOCTORS,

Sir, —After your excellent leader in reply to Dean Darby's strictures on the medical profession one would havo thought that tlie Dean would have admitted that surgery was not the black art that ho painted it. But no; ho returns to the attack. People who live in glass houses should beware of throwing stones. Even the clergy are not perfect. A few. centuries ago the practico of medicine was largely in the hands of the priests, but medicine had then degenerated from what it had been amongst the pagans. It is no new thing to find the Ciergy opposing medical progress. Tho early fathers, taking their stand on the Bible, insisted on tho demoniac nature of illness. "The diseases of Christians aro to be ascribed to demons,' said St. Augustino; other fathers also taught the same fatal theory. It followed that medical treatment was of little, it any, consequence, and the curing ot diseaso became the function of ecclesiastical magic. "Tho precepts of medicine are contrary to celestial science," said Ambrose. The Church leaders denounced the anatomist with particular violenco. Tho body was tlie temple of the iioty Gliost, and must not bo desecrated witn the knife and the saw. Throughout the Middle Ages we find some monastic leaders, liko St. Bernard, denouncing recourse to mcdical aid. Pius V tlie lay physician to practise without tlio concurrence of the priest. 1 who showed any tendency to go beyond Galon and tradition were denounced, and tho able Jew physicians were everywhere Xmatised and often, entire y prolubited (by Eugenius IV, Nicholas V, Calentus 111, and several councils) Tho natural Tesult was a degradation of medicino and . surgery., and a fatal nrolongation of tlie sufferings of lmman ftv A vast flood of human suffering wis allowed to flow on that might have been towered or arrested ages ago but for religious illusions. The terrible epidemics of tho Middle Ages wcro due to neglect of cleanliness The monasteries were particulaily filthy, and suffered in these opiuemics In tho fourteenth century twenty-five million people perished of tho Blade Death, and tens of thousands of Jews and witches wcro burnt to stay cress. A physician of Cloves, John Weyor, led the early reform, but the Church put his books on the I n <J e £ J" 1 ' 1 Catholics and Protestants united in hostility to him. Even in reoeni Umos

hhvo an example of the antagonism of tho Church to medical progress. In Scotland Sir J. Simpson's proposal to ■use anaesthetics at child-birth "was met with pulpit protests against any schemo to "avoid olio part of the primeval curse on woman." . Lot anyone who wishes to pursue the matter further read anv history of modioino and surgery, or ' Tho Bible in Europe" (Joseph M'Cabe). Apologising for taking up so much of your valuable space. —l am, etc., LAPIDATOR.