Chapter XVIII 



WHAT MEDICINE HAS DONE AND IS DOING FOR 



THE RACE 



Sir Humphry Rolleston 



IN the past medical men, being those chiefly interested in 

 natural science, played no insignificant part in the spread 

 of general culture. This is hardly surprising for the 

 doctor is or should be a biologist, and medical science is 

 practically synonymous with human biology. Although at 

 one time medicine came within the province of the ency- 

 clopedic scholar, the scholar-physicians were not without 

 their influence on classical learning; Thomas Linacre (1460- 

 1524) was largely responsible for the introduction of the 

 study of Greek into Great Britain, and by founding the 

 Royal College of Physicians of London in 15 18 encouraged 

 the pursuit and raised the standard of learning among its 

 Fellows, who as scholarly physicians set an example in 

 extending the cult of the classics. Since the birth of phys- 

 iology in 1628, when William Harvey published his discovery 

 of the circulation of the blood, the observations and the 

 needs of medicine have illustrated and stimulated research 

 in physiology and chemistry; though medicine owes an 

 ever-increasing debt to these sciences, the account is not 

 entirely one-sided: statistical science too owes much to the 

 stimulus given by the requirements of medicine, as realized 

 and carried out in its earliest days by Sir William Petty 

 (1623-1687) and later by Dr. William Farr (1807-1883). 



In primitive races the priesthood supervised the care of 

 the body as well as the cure of souls, a combination with an 

 evil influence in fostering superstition and engendering 

 belief in magic; but the advice given then and by medical 

 men since with regard to manner of life, the use of alcoholic 

 stimulants and of narcotics, and sexual conduct has made 

 for good morals. The medical missionary, the modern suc- 

 cessor in the functions of the primitive priest-doctor, gains 

 potential leverage for his moral and religious teaching from 



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