304 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



THE TEAINING OF A PHYSICIAN.* 



By President DAVID STARR JORDAN, 



LELAND STANFORD JR. UNIVERSITY. 



TN mediaeval times the physician was a compound of sorcerer and 

 -^ priest; distrusted by sorcerers lest he disclose the secrets of their 

 trade ; distrusted by priests lest he undo their work with the heathenism 

 of sorcery. His operations were mystic, out of relation to cause and 

 effect, for it was widely believed that the forces of the body are inde- 

 pendent of bodily structures, and that sickness was a blow from the 

 outside, a penalty for sin or lust or unbelief, not the expression of 

 bodily derangement. 



So the physician dealt with words as much as with medicines. 

 Many Latin words held a magic power. By their use he could call up 

 spirits, mostly evil, could put man to sleep or make a broomstick alive. 

 Lest he carry these things too far, there were statutes forbidding the 

 physician to act save in the presence of a priest. Besides words, he 

 dealt in simples; each drug having potency over its particular disease. 

 These drugs he would know by their signatures, the mark of the 

 Almighty on them indicating their use. Thus a scrofulous-looking root 

 would cure scrofula, snake-head or snake-root would cure snake bite; 

 blood-root with red juice was good for the blood ; celandine with yellow 

 juice was marked for jaundice; liver-wort with liver-shaped leaves 

 would heal the liver; eye-bright with an eye-spot in the flower would 

 heal the eyes; bear's grease from hairy bears would cure baldness; a 

 hair of the mad dog would relieve its venom. A red rag would cure 

 inflammations. A drug which would give a headache would cure it. 

 A long series of fancies and superstitions, which find their natural 

 continuance in the electric belts and patent medicines of to-day. 



Surgery was despised by medicine, and the little which was prac- 

 tised feU to the lot of barbers; with dirty knives and reckless hands 

 surgery ended in gangrene and blood poisoning. 



The success of the physician lay largely in the mystery of his 

 operations, his Latin words and the red and blue flames which danced 

 about the broths he concocted. 



Meanwhile sanitation and diet were regarded as contrary to re- 

 ligion. Even the taking of medicine was sometimes forbidden as 

 being a scheme to thwart God's purposes. Besides all this, the words 



* Abstract of address, Cooper Medical College Commencement. 



