The people's voice., 1958-09-26
(First of a Series)

The number of doctors of medicine
licensed in Montana by the State
Board of Medical Examiners is care
fully controlled. True or false? Doc
tors are not interested in going into
rural areas or small towns. Foreign
doctors are willing to go into these
areas but American doctors are not.
Foreign doctors are trained better
than American doctors. The Ameri-
can Medical Association is a power
full trust that limits the number of
graduates.
The frequency that these state
ments are made is evident that the
people in Montana are not fully ac-
quainted with the ideals and prin-
ciples of the ANA and the Montana
Medical Association.
The State Board of Medical Exam
iners is a board which is charged
by the law to examine and issue Ii
censes to practice medicine and sur
gerry in Montana.
The principles underlying medical
education are we'll known to parents
and close friends of medical students
but to many others it is just long
and expensive training which doesn't
turn out as many doctors as it should.
The lack of information and under
standing is a case of negligence on
the part of medicine to fully present
the story of the doctor to the people,
and just how the doctors feels about
the people he treats, and his obliga-
ton to his patient.
The history of medicine is a very
interesting story. It's evolution from
ancient times to the present has been
paralleled by the attitude of society
through the ages. The doctors has
been a product of his particular era
in history. Medicine has generally
been just what people of any particu-
lar period have demanded, hence med
icine in the Dark Ages was in tune
with the superstitious, the shackles
of dogmatism and submissive slavery
of the writings of the Ancients. Medi-
cine was solidly locked in the intel
lectual mildew for the first thousand
years of the Christian Era. No per-
son could possibly question what the
Greeks or the Persians wrote.
With the awakening and the free
ing of the mind from intellectual
slavery medicine awakened too. For
the first time since ancient Greece
men could question the old masters.
Dogmas, hypothesis, superstitions no
longer were accepted but subjected
to scrutiny. There were some courag-
eous men of science after 1900 AID.
but little of real Importance until
about 1000 AID.
After the discovery of the circula-
ton of the blood, and the invention
of the microscope advance began.
Medicine again was product of the
era and fitted into the contemporary
atmosphere of the many men who
question the truth of the past so care
fully set down in Latin.
Most everyone is familiar with the
continued progress in medicine since
the time of Pasteur and Lister and
Semmelweis. Although in the last
half of the 18th Century and the first
half of the 10Th Century much prog
ress was made in physiology, pathol-
ogy. surgery and infections. In gen
erai it was only after the advent of
the Pasteur or 'germ era" that the
work of these earlier students was
appreciated.
Modern medicine really began with
the acceptance of Pasteur's work and
Listers practical application of the
germ theory in surgery. The enigma
of childbed feved was solved, although
it wasn't until the advent of the
sulpha drugs that this scourge OF
child-bearing could be conquered.
Most doctors in early American
history were trained in Scotland and