Who's To Blame: Galen or Rush?
Throughout our school-days and even after that, I would assume, we are informed of the perfect stupidity of old-fashioned medicine. We are informed of the complete idiocy of doctors through their beliefs in bleeding and the four humors and all that good stuff. When we're in elementary school, we're just told about them, then when we get to middle school and high school, the teachers, in an attempt to "further inform" their students of the idiocy of past doctors, blame it all on Galen. Galen was the guy who came up with the four humors, for sure, and he was quite the advocate of bleeding. But was the idiocy really all his fault?
True, throughout the Middle Ages, Medieval Era and Renaissance, Galen was followed, but in many ways, the beliefs of Galen, with the exception of bleeding, were fairly harmless. True, they helped no one, but does it really hurt you to eat flour and water when you have the flu? It's moronic, but it's not really harmful.
I would argue that complete idiocy came with the advent of another "friend." But, still, we named a medical school after the guy. His name was Dr. Benjamin Rush. Not only did Rush fail to recognize the lack of intelligence involved in bleeding (nay, he continued to encourage that), but he also introduce some even weirder ideas.
1) Purging. Let's make everyone puke or poop and it will make everything better. What's even better than making them puke or poop. Let's use mercury salts to do it! That will solve all our problems.
2) 45 second amputation. It was Benjamin Rush's belief that no amputation should take more than 45 seconds. So, maybe it was less painful, but let's take some pride in our work here and watch what we're cutting, please?
3) Opium. He made it even bigger than it was. He had Sears and Roebuck selling morphine complete with the hypodermic needle sets. Weird guy.
4) (my personal favorite) Blistering. So, the purging didn't work, and the bleeding didn't work, or they're already passed that level (because we got involved late), so we're going to move onto part three: blistering. Yeah, it's a great plan to put acid/flammable materials onto the chest of people with fevers and then light it on fire. Why? Well, it creates blisters that we can then pop and we'll get the toxins out that way! What sort of weirdo are you?
Given, Rush is sometimes cursed for his belief that being black is a hereditary disease, but he was still an abolitionist. He was only saying it out of naivete, not because he thought that they were lesser human beings. He simply met a black who had lost his blackness (probably through vitiligo), so he thought that it was something that was "curable." He however, did believe that they were equal humans who deserved equal rights, as well as "treatment of their disease."
At least Galen taught us some good things about medicine, and really, he helped us in the long run. Why does Galen get cursed and Rush gets a medical school? I really don't know.
True, throughout the Middle Ages, Medieval Era and Renaissance, Galen was followed, but in many ways, the beliefs of Galen, with the exception of bleeding, were fairly harmless. True, they helped no one, but does it really hurt you to eat flour and water when you have the flu? It's moronic, but it's not really harmful.
I would argue that complete idiocy came with the advent of another "friend." But, still, we named a medical school after the guy. His name was Dr. Benjamin Rush. Not only did Rush fail to recognize the lack of intelligence involved in bleeding (nay, he continued to encourage that), but he also introduce some even weirder ideas.
1) Purging. Let's make everyone puke or poop and it will make everything better. What's even better than making them puke or poop. Let's use mercury salts to do it! That will solve all our problems.
2) 45 second amputation. It was Benjamin Rush's belief that no amputation should take more than 45 seconds. So, maybe it was less painful, but let's take some pride in our work here and watch what we're cutting, please?
3) Opium. He made it even bigger than it was. He had Sears and Roebuck selling morphine complete with the hypodermic needle sets. Weird guy.
4) (my personal favorite) Blistering. So, the purging didn't work, and the bleeding didn't work, or they're already passed that level (because we got involved late), so we're going to move onto part three: blistering. Yeah, it's a great plan to put acid/flammable materials onto the chest of people with fevers and then light it on fire. Why? Well, it creates blisters that we can then pop and we'll get the toxins out that way! What sort of weirdo are you?
Given, Rush is sometimes cursed for his belief that being black is a hereditary disease, but he was still an abolitionist. He was only saying it out of naivete, not because he thought that they were lesser human beings. He simply met a black who had lost his blackness (probably through vitiligo), so he thought that it was something that was "curable." He however, did believe that they were equal humans who deserved equal rights, as well as "treatment of their disease."
At least Galen taught us some good things about medicine, and really, he helped us in the long run. Why does Galen get cursed and Rush gets a medical school? I really don't know.
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