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I won't disagree that medicine has come a long way but I'm going to say that this is a giant disservice to some very great doctors in history. My favorite exam
by lofatdairy 4y ago
I won't disagree that medicine has come a long way but I'm going to say that this is a giant disservice to some very great doctors in history.
My favorite example is John Bradmore, who saved the life of King Henry V after he was shot in the fucking head with an arrow. Not only was John Bradmore a surgeon, he was also something of metalworker (and in fact, was arrested for making counterfeit coins; he had to be pulled out of jail to save the king's life). He used that skill to design a bespoke tool to pull the arrowhead out of the king's head, creating an antibacterial environment with honey and disinfecting the wound with alcohol (though this was before germ theory). Henry V would later go on to rule for 19 more years (he would die for seemingly unrelated reasons, heatstroke). By the way, this was in 1403.
There's also a problem with your criticism in the sense that it implies that doctors were blindly confident, and not for a particularly good reason. While obviously certain incorrect beliefs persisted for quite some time in history, it's from within medicine and from other doctors that these views were more often than not corrected and updated. Obviously, Galen believed incorrectly that the human heart has sinuses from which blood flowed across and was filtered, but to his defense he was not allowed by the state to perform human dissections. If anything, the neo-Galenists were to blame (as Andreas Versalius so often harshly criticized, to the detriment of his Latin grammar, funnily enough). But it's only through the work of people like Ibn al-Nafis, Vesalius, and William Harvey (the latter two's frustration with Galen comes across pretty clearly in their writing) that we have the perspective to say that beliefs like Galen's were wildly off the mark. What I mean to say is, that it's very easy to say that those early doctors were far too confident in their pseudo-scientific theories, yet that's the nature of scientific knowledge and the epistemology of medicine; we know better only because of social changes, technological improvements, and/or particularly clever insights.
- lqet 4y agoHere is an image of the tool: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EyiqN6UXMAAZbrM?format=jpg&name=small https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EyiqN6UXMAAZbrM?format=jpg&name=... I must admit it's pretty clever.
- rob74 4y agoNot only that, but crucially (quote from Wikipedia): "Over a period of several days, John Bradmore, the royal physician, treated the wound with honey to act as an antiseptic, crafted a tool to screw into the embedded arrowhead (bodkin point) and thus extract it without doing further damage, and flushed the wound with alcohol." Despite the clever tool, if the wound had gotten infected, the then-prince would have probably died. So the knowledge of what to use to disinfect wounds already existed, but apparently wasn't undisputed until much later...
- eru 4y ago> So the knowledge of what to use to disinfect wounds already existed, but apparently wasn't undisputed until much later... Not sure he had the right theory, though? He might have used honey 'by accident'?
- _0ffh 4y agoEven if the theory was probably still lacking, a solid empirical basis would still be infinitely preferable to none at all.
- eru 4y agoYes, but I don't know whether he had a solid empirical basis? Compare https://idlewords.com/2010/03/scott_and_scurvy.htm https://idlewords.com/2010/03/scott_and_scurvy.htm a store about how the cure to scurvy was found and lost and found again.
- kevinmchugh 4y agoThere's certainly other examples of inventions preceding understanding. Pasteurization was invented many times, Louis Pasteur was the last inventor, and the only one who understood germ theory. Citrus rations to prevent scurvy predate the discovery of vitamins. I want to say I've heard of wounds being treated with honey in translations of Greek myths, but I couldn't swear to that.
- __alexs 4y agoYou don't seem to be truly in disagreement with OP, you're just using being more charitable in your description and interpretation of events.
- Beldin 4y agoA doctor whose patient lives on 19 years after removing an arrow from his head does not sound terrible at all, yet that doctor preceded gp's cutoff date by centuries. I'd say that's sufficiently clear disagreement.
- rob74 4y agoAlso, apparently he died of entirely different causes (weakened by disentery and possible heatstroke).
- pwagland 4y agoNot really, Op says: > The only rational use for a doctor back then was if you needed emergency surgery because you were going to die very soon. It was a situation that they could only make better. Having an arrow in your head qualifies as needing emergency surgery, and it was a situation that they certainly made better.
- andrewchambers 4y agoThey don't disagree on the facts, its just one description is an extremely uncharitable and insulting to the skills of our ancestors. There were talented and skilled healers who did the best they could with the knowledge of the time.
- __alexs 4y agoSome of them were definitely noble people but they were still bad at it. Sometimes (often?) the cost of progress is measured in bodies.
- krisoft 4y agoBut that story with the arrow sounds exactly like the “you needed emergency surgery because you were going to die very soon”. So I don’t see how what you wrote is in disagrement with what GP wrote.
- c048 4y agoExceptions also don't make the rule. If out of a 100 doctors there was 1 actually helpful one (and probably not in every scenario), I think you're free to call the service quite terrible in general.
- lofatdairy 4y agoIn hindsight I was probably too excited to share that particular story. A better example might have been some of the Islamic physicians who were writing treatises and books in the 10th and 11th century. A good review article on a few such treatises (republished on a British charity org site, originally published in Historical Aspects of Pediatric Surgery)[^1] gives an idea of what I assume would be more routine, less everything-on-the-line treatments. Though, the distinction from what is life threatening and what is routine has not always been so clear as in this modern period, and it has also shifted around, making this point of contention a bit difficult to judge. [^1]: https://muslimheritage.com/paediatric-urology-1000-years-ago/ https://muslimheritage.com/paediatric-urology-1000-years-ago...
- JoeAltmaier 4y agoI often hear the lament about "illegal to perform dissection!" But let's be honest. If you dissect a pig, you could have made all those discoveries about how the heart worked and what lungs were for and which organs connected to what. You didn't need a human subject.
- vanattab 4y agoHow would you KNOW it worked the same as a human heart if you have never seen the insides of a human. This is pre-darwin so the common evolution of mammals is not yet understood.
- pflanze 4y agoWikipedia[1] has some more details and slight corrections: - Henry V was operated on 16 years old (1403), but became king only 10 years later (1413) (your wording isn't incorrect, just incomplete) - He ruled for only 9 years, until 1422 (his death). He did live for 19 years after the surgery though, that's correct. - The arrow/arrowhead seems to have missed the brain[2]. (You didn't say it hit it, and I don't know how much of a difference that makes.) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_V_of_England https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_V_of_England [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bradmore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bradmore