The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1902-12-13
FAITHS OF DOCT0sS.
THE MEDICAL BELIEFS AS
SHOWN
In ReItgtO MedioI and as shown
To-day.

4GH udyS ago d cdDle dispatch from
London gave the astonishing news that
Sir Frederick TreYes, the famous Eng
fish surgeon, had pronounced peri
toEitis benefit to mankind. That his
remarks had been distorted in some
way was obvious, and the following
summary (reprinted from the London
Times) of his speech made before the
Liverpool University College medical
faculty give very different meaning
to his words.
Sir Frederick Treves, says the Times
report, in the course of his address, con-
trasted the present position of surgery
in England with its position in the
past. He said that surgery 25 or 30
years ago was attended With a very
small mOdicum of success. One small
operating theater would be sufficient
for a hospital Of 100 or 800 beds, and
one operating day a week would be suf-
ficient. That was actually the case
with the London hospitals 25 years ago.
Now, with the introduction of antisep-
tic surgery the whole aspect OF opera
tive surgery was changed. No words
could describe what the suffering pub
lie owed to the advancements made in
that some 260 years ago an English
physician published to the world a con-
fession of his faith. The physician was
Sir Thomas Browne and the book
which embodied his confession was Re
ligio Medici. The writer was a man of
unusual culture, whose learning had
been acquired at Oxford, Montpelier
Padua and Leyden. 1t was memorable
that this famous book was produced at
the very commencement of the writer's
career, and it might be well for those
who are just now entering upon the
profession of medicine to consider what
is now, at the dawn of the twentieth
century, the faith of the physician.
There was much in the Religio
Medici which was personal to the man
who wrote it, there was a little which
would be unacceptable to the modern
physician; but there remained a not
inconsiderable part which rested upon
Interchangeable foundations and which
was beyond criticism. The elements of
that creed would appear to concern
themselves with two great issues, with
the general attitude of the medical
man toward disease, and with his par
ticular attitude toward the sick whom
he will profess to treat. In the days of
Sir Thomas Browne a conception of
diseases was current which still influ-
enced the minds of many although that
conception should have vanished with
the advance of scientific knowledge.
The old idea of disease was that it was
a malignant entity, a something vague
ly individualized as evil in origin, evil
in intent, and evil in effect. 1t was the
roaring lion going about seeking whom
he may devour. The conception went
further, and made of disease a Prince
of Darkness vindctively hostile and
potent only for i'll. His minions fell
upon the land like hideOus blight and
covered smiling country with the
shadow of death. Primitive people re-
garded disease as the work of a malig
nant spirit who entered into a man
and who was to be propitiated by gifts
and flattery on the one hand, or driven
out by the beating of tOnl-toms or by
strident lamentations on the other. To
the author of the Religio Medici dis
ease was still the outcome of an lnflu
ence which was outside the body and
quite distinct from It. There was moth
ing natural in any Of it's processes, and
nothing benf1cent in any of its mani
festations. It followed from this that
every symptom of disease was of ne
cessity regarded as wholly noXious and
as needing to be stamped out by I'M
considered violence. If the patient
vomited the vomiting must be stopped,
if he coughed the cought must cease, if
he failed to take food he must be made
to eat. Not for a moment could it be-
considered that there was any benevo-
lent purpose in these phenomena.
The physician of the present day
could not include this conception
among the articles of his faith. In the
new Religio Medici the matter of belief
must follow some such lines as these:
The human body is highly organized, is
frail, is finite, and is, of necessity,
prone to decay and dissolution. 1t
grows, it reaches its maximum power,
1t declines, and its capacities fail. In
the progressive enlightenment and in
the slow elimination of the evidences of
life which attend old age there was
nothing preternatural, and nothing
which could be considered to be due to
ether than the simplest natural inf1u-
ences. The inherent decay Of the hui
man body rendered it liable to acct
dent, and there was no reason why it
alone-of all other organic structures
should be exempt from injury. The
body also-like other living fabrics
was prone to be infested by parasites,
and upon the action of these parasit es
very many maladies depended. Not
only was there nothing preternatural in
disease, but it was the outcome of nat
ural processes and, more than that,
there was evidence to show that many
of its manifestations and of it's methods
were marked by a purpose, and that
that purpose was beneficent. The time
had come when it would rather appear
that many of the so-called symptoms
of disease were expressions of a nat
ural effort toward cure.
Having enlarged on the relation to
specific diseases, he said this matter
might be followed out a little more in
detail in connection with the symptoms
of the disease familiar by the uncouth
name of appendicitis. In this malady
a trouble occurred in the appendix The
wall of the little tube became perfor-
ated, and an acid poison found it way
into the sensitive cavity of the abdo-
men. This, at least, was the essential
calamity in many instances. The per-