INFLUENCE EXERTED UPON THE DEVELOPMENT OF SUPERSTITION BY MEDICINE ITSELF

As ancient, medieval, and some more modern theories of medicine have traveled over the same diagnostico-theoretical roads as did the natural science of those periods, they were naturally subject to the same errors and aberrations. But the consequences of their errors differed materially. Whereas natural science, in the early and middle ages, with its faulty diagnostico-theoretical method, too frequently had recourse to supernatural factors to explain terrestrial phenomena, and thus created superstition instead of elucidation, the pathology of ancient as well as of medieval medicine avoided as much as possible any recourse to miraculous agencies in explaining the pathological phenomena of the body. This it was forced to do for the sake of self-preservation. For what would have become of the physicians with their art, which was of a purely material kind, working as it did with drug and knife, if they themselves had traced disease to supernatural causes? No one, under such conditions, would have had any dealings with mundane medical science. It is true, there have been times when such a state of things actually existed. The physician, with his earthly appliances, was always led astray as soon as metaphysical ideas had victoriously entered pathology. History affords numerous examples of this. The cult of relics, the belief in astrology during half of the middle ages, show plainly to what a degrading position the physician was reduced as soon as a pathology reckoning with earthly factors was replaced by a metaphysical theory of disease. Then the physician was either completely thrust aside—???’ ??e?ta? ?? ??? ??s???t?? ? ?at???, as says Plutarch (“Superstition,” Vol. I., page 412)—or he was forced to submit to a disgraceful interference. All schools of medicine, therefore, from the humoral pathology of the followers of Hippocrates to the so-called parasitism of the nineteenth century, have avoided as much as possible the acknowledgment that supernatural influences were active as pathological factors. Various as the principles of the countless medical schools may have been, they were all united in assuming as the starting-point of their speculations some material process of the body itself, in accordance with which they applied their therapeutic agencies.

Sometimes, it is true, it would seem as tho medicine, under some circumstances, had recourse to supernatural factors in explaining various phenomena of physiological as well as pathological conditions; as, for instance, in the primeval pneuma-doctrine, or in those conceptions which attribute to a mental or psychical principle a far-reaching influence upon the performance of all bodily functions. Upon closer investigation, however, we shall find that the pneuma, or spirit, the soul, or whatever else the mysterious mainspring of all phenomena of life may be called, was by no means conceived of by medicine as immaterial or supernatural. On the contrary! Medicine, as often as it required a spiritual something to explain the manifestations of the body, has always regarded this unknown quantity as thoroughly substantial. It has not, indeed, been possible to determine more precisely the material nature of this great unknown, altho such attempts are by no means wanting in Democritus, Galen, and others; still it was always considered a corporeal thing. Supernatural qualities were ascribed to it only after death, but so long as the soul animated the body, united with the latter, it was a terrestrial being, and as such obeyed the laws of terrestrial substance. It was possible for medical science, therefore, to reckon with it in the explanation of pathological processes without necessarily expecting a reproach that supernatural agencies were called in for assistance.

Medicine, therefore, altho it has traveled the same diagnostico-theoretical road as natural science, has not, like the latter, directly produced superstition. It is true, it has called forth innumerable erroneous hypotheses. But a wrong hypothesis, altho it may be nonsensical to the utmost and give rise to the most serious practical consequences, is by no means superstition; for both error and superstition—so far as it is a question of medical matters—are two radically different conceptions, because the former concerns itself only with natural, the latter with supernatural factors.

Yet it is quite conceivable that the dissemination of an intellectual principle can be furthered and promoted without overt advocacy of the principle itself, and this was the relation that existed for thousands of years between medicine and superstition; for we learn from this investigation that the representatives of medicine were too often ready to admit all kinds of superstitious views into medicine. Whenever religion, philosophy, and natural science have seriously attempted to influence medicine in a manner promoting superstition, medical science yielded to these attempts, and this is the only reproach which can be justly laid at the door of our science.

However, this reproach is mitigated if we consider that medicine did not accord a home to superstition of its own free will, or even from a predilection for the heresies of other disciples, but it did so under compulsion; for the religious, the philosophical, the physical views which forced the entrance of superstition into medical science were almost always the views of a formidable party. It is a fact sufficiently demonstrated by history that powerful and far-reaching predilections of the popular mind resistlessly hurry along whatever is in their path. Such mental currents are the products of their period; they are the immediate result of the general sentiment and feeling of their time, and for this very reason they successfully overcome resistance. The opinion of a single individual may raise a protest against the spirit of the age, but this resistance is always bound to be in vain. The opinion of a single individual, even if it actually represents the truth, is absolutely powerless to resist the spirit of the age which, with elemental force, compels obedience. Therefore, the courageous, truth-seeking resistance which was offered to the heresies of Medicina Astrologica by Pico of Mirandola and Girolamo Fracastori was bound to be futile, because astrology was a genuine child of its time, and therefore held irresistible sway over thought and sentiment.

If religion and philosophy so often interfered with the development of medicine, this was only possible because the general tendency of the contemporary mind was thoroughly absorbed in this or that religious or philosophical idea. For each domain of human activity must needs be a mere reflection of the tendency which guides the mind of its period. This is a law which, with iron force, dominates the development of culture. Superstition in medicine, therefore, was bound to flourish and thrive whenever it harmonized with the spirit of the age.

This law, tho it may have checked the development of our science, nevertheless holds out the certain promise of a period, the intellectual power of which will thoroughly clear away all relics of superstition, which, still persisting in the minds of the many, drives them to the faith-curist and to the quack.