The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1907-11-17

we really uledu ueEelu ny Iue wv
word: as applied to medicine: A med
icai hierarchy is not an organized
body of self appointed rulers; on the
contrary it consists mainly of dead
saints, medical men who while living
suffered all manner of persecution
and even death for the truths sake,
men who because Of the courage UT
their convictions, hewing to the line
flew chips, which hitting the oligar-
chy, angered them and drew down up
on their devoted heads "the majesty
of the law" which said oligarchy Is
always insistent shall give it unlimit-
ed power, and for which it is perpet-
ually lobbying the legislative bodies,
of which it plaintively laments the
deep-seated distrust of medical bills.
Such medical gentlemen, and there
have always been hundreds of them
in all times past, while present day
medicine counts them by the thous-
ands who like the above quoted, "cry
aloud and spare not" These men are
not found in the coronership, the may
orality. health officers. health boards.
examining and Registering boards, and
government medical inspectors; they
are either dead and their work lives
and becomes canOnized only after
death, or If living, are men who, in
spite of their bravery in exposing
medical errors and hobbies, command
respect by dint of scholarly attain
ments and high scientific eminence in
their chosen profession One instance
in the history of medical oligarchy
will suffice to show its virulency In
the past; and only because of a whole
some, popular mistrust Of medical
laws giving them legaliZed tyranny, is
it less cruel and indicative today;
nevertheless, the metaphysical stake
and faggot of "crankism, irregular.
auack, unethicai," and killed by the
conspiracy of silence" are as much
in evidence today as three hundred
years ago.
Three hundred fifty years ago the
9th day of October, Michael Servetus,
the most learned man. perhaps, of his
time. a skilled physician. a philoso-
pher, a reformer. fearless in his oppo.
sition to both medical and religious
oligarchy. and by his trenchent books
denouncing both with merciless sever
ity, brought down their combined
wrath and vindictiveness. was burned
at the stake by slow fire on hill
near Geneva Servetus condemned
the many errors of the medical au
thorities of the time: he made marvel
Gus discoveries in anatomy and physi
o!ogy, among which was the circula
ton of the blood through the lungs
and back to the heart again: what il
called the pulmonary circulation. HI
taught that instead of malevolent en-
eased functions of the body occurred ii
no wise different from the same func
tionating in health, in other words
that disease was simply the physiolo
gle actions perverted by invasion o
the system by harmful influences ane
substances While 1t is true that Ser
vetus was condemned to the stake b,
the religious oligarchy. yet the medica
oligarchy were his real executors. TIL,
beastly cruelty of oligarchic medica
fanaticism of the time can only be IN
derstood and realized by a description
of his burning. From an ancien
chronicler. an eye witness, we quote:
When he came in sight of the fata
pile, the wretched Seryetus prostratet
] himself on the ground, and for awhil.