British North Borneo Herald, 1931 - Ancient beliefs superstitions should be dealth with tenderly and with respect and not in the derisive spirit they are often apt to be, for the closer we look into the manners and customs of primitive man, the more liable are we to have our conceit taken down.
A well-knowing scientific man has declared, that in the medical sense, “that to a great extent there is nothing new under the sun”.
The age of is miracles is past, and yet the most recent aspects of modern healing have reference to the actual cure of disease, through the influence of the mind upon the body.
Hippocratic, 400 years B. C., has been termed the Father of Modern Medicine, and with very good reason.
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The Hippocratic oath, demanded of the young physician, about to enter upon the practice of this profession, and relating to professional conduct, is still administered to graduates by them as being of the least of the most impressive parts of the ceremony.
The Hippocratic facies is still remarked as a facial appearance, which is a forerunner of death from cholera or other exhausting disease, and the enlargement of the ends of the fingers due to want of oxygenation of the blood, as seen in heart disease and phthisis was an observation originally made by this great physician.
Chloroform Ether used for general anesthesia were not discovered till the early forties of the last century, but the use of soporific potions and anodynes to produce general anesthesia goes back to remote antiquity.
In the 21st verse of genesis it says: -
“And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept, and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh thereof”.
Thus was symbolized the action of a narcotic drug administered to procure surgical anesthesia. Drugs like Henbane, Opium, Indian Hemp and Mandrake have all been used for countless ages in order to produce sleep.
In the First Book of Samuel, Chapters V and VI, there is a very interesting account of an outbreak of Bubonic Plague, which devastated the ranks of the Philistines after a victory over the Israelites and which led to the capture of the Ark of the Covenant.
The diviners and priests who were the physicians of those days, advised returning the Ark to the conquered Israelites, so as to propitiate the Israelites God, to whom they attributed their misfortunes.
They sent with the Ark golden reproductions of emerods or buboes and mice or rats which marred the land.
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We know now that dead rats cause plague because the fleas on them desert their cold bodies and seek other hosts who are warmer, hence the sequence of man’s infection.
These men of old did not know that plague was caused by the “bacillus pestis” which was transmitted by the flea from the dead rat, but they obviously connected the presence of these rodents with the epidemic of disease which was afflicting them.
That great protagonist of the old Testament, Moses, who has in recent times been proclaimed the greatest Commissariat Officer and Sanitarian known to history, and whose laws and history, and whose laws and regulations have since been incorporated into our own modern science of Hygiene and Public Health, must still be regarded as the greatest of the Prophets of all time.
The Biblical description of “leprosy” although clinically incorrect for that particular disease, referred to a large number of skin diseases, probably, just as natives in this Territory today speak of “Korap” which appears to include all infectious skin diseases known to them. With the Babylonians of ancient times, the whole People was the Physician, although they eventually reached the stage of the Egyptians and had a special , doctor for every disease.
History records of them that: They brought out their sick to the market-place, for they had no physicians; passers-by would confer with them about their disease and discover whether they themselves had been afflicted with the same disease or had seen others so afflicted, thus passers-by advise them to have the same treatment as that which they escaped a similar disease, or as they have known it to, cure others.
They are not allowed to pass by a sick person in. silence, without inquiring into the nature of his distemper.”
In these days, friends visit patients in our Hospitals, and usually do precisely the same thing. Experiences were exchanged, comparisons drawn, and advice given, very often at variance with the views of the medical man who is in charge of the case.
The Chinese of old were wonderfully clever at massage and they were early acquainted means of finger prints.
Colour was an important factor in the treatment of disease and Finsen’s red light treatment for the pitting of small-pox was known to the Japanese many centuries ago.
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Red was a colour with special virtue as being hateful to evil spirits.
The Chinese at the present time plaster their walls and lintels with red papers in order to keep demons away, similarly in rural England today, little sufferers from whooping cough and sore throat, invariably have red flannel wrapped round their necks.
Red coral bead necklaces, red coral rings and bells on which the baby cuts its teeth, red pills for pale people, probably all have the same superstitious association. Chinese medicine is what our medicine might be, had we been guided by mediaeval ideas down to the present time.
We owe to them the invention of spectacles, inoculation for small-pox and the influence of colour on disease.
Their medicine was at its zenith during the earlier centuries of the Christian era and was practised by the priests who also founded Schools of Medicine with a seven years course of instruction. At about this same period in the British Isles, English Medicine was made up of charms, spells and herbs doctoring.
Probably one of the greatest mistake in Medicine of the Past was that they endeavoured to treat disease and not the particular drug depends as much on the delicate chemical adjustment of that body as upon the composition of the drug itself.