EMERGENCE OF MODERN MEDICINE— ALVAREZ 4^5 



practitioner, got well. Yes, this happens aU the time and yet it 

 usually proves nothing. Many is the time that I have received great 

 credit for cures which I know good old Mother Nature had more to 

 do with than I. I can remember one of the lucky breaks that came 

 to me when I was a young man starting out in the practice of medicine. 

 A man lay ill with pneumonia and, as usually happens in this disease, 

 each morning of the first week found him worse. Not knowing 

 enough about the disease to expect this, the wife became convinced 

 that the nice old doctor in attendance did not know his business and 

 dismissed him. I was then called and I barely had time to change 

 the medicines before the crisis came — and my reputation was made! 

 I tried to explain to the people that they must not blame the old 

 doctor because in this case the pneumonia had run a very typical 

 course to recovery, but they thought I was just trying to be modest; 

 and so finally I gave in, and said no more, salving my conscience with 

 the conviction that sooner or later I would get my share of disgrace 

 perhaps as undeserved as was my present credit. And so it happened ; 

 my next patient with pneumonia did so badly that I was dismissed; 

 the old doctor was called in shortly before the crisis came, and thus he 

 got even with me. 



Now, you may smile at all this, but just remember that such things 

 commonly happen when next you hear of a case like the one I will 

 now describe. A nationally known educator lay ill with pneumonia. 

 The ninth day came and no crisis; and, because the physicians in 

 attendance looked anxious and shook their heads ominously, the 

 family discharged them and called in a back-adjuster who only a short 

 time before had been a bathhouse attendant. Next day the crisis 

 came and, for the rest of his life, that distinguished college professor — 

 who should have known better — extoUed to his friends the virtues of 

 a certain cult and the skiU of a certain ignorant but pleasant and well- 

 meaning man. 



Curing a disease that wasn't there. — Or here is the fairly common 

 story of another type of case in which the irregular practitioner triumphs 

 because either he or some good physician diagnosed wrongly. The 

 case is that of a very wealthy woman who was operated on years ago 

 for a tumor of the large bowel. It looked so much like an inoperable 

 cancer that the famous surgeon in attendance did not attempt to 

 remove it, but simply made a bypass around it. Later, as more 

 experience came to him, he realized that what he had seen was not a 

 cancer at aU but only an inflammatory mass that would probably dis- 

 appear after the type of operation that he had performed. But in the 

 meantime, the patient had gone to a faith healer; and when years 

 passed and she remained well, she built for this healer and her faith 

 a beautiful church. Always, then, when one hears that some healer 



