First do no harm."
~ Aphorism attributed to the Hippocratic Oath
We should hire three or four colored ministers preferably with social-service backgrounds and with engaging personalities. The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We dont want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population via abortion racism. And the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members."
~ 1938 letter by Margaret Sanger to friend Dr. Clarence Gamble (founder of the Procter & Gamble Corp.)
Prologue to Hippocrates and Galen: legislators of ancient medicine
Our understanding of the historical Hippocrates (460370 B.C.) is nearly entirely dependent upon Plato. In Platos works like the Protagoras and the Phaedrus we learn that Hippocrates and Socrates were of the same generation that he was a native of Cos and an Asclepiad a follower that is of a family or guild that traced its origin to this Greek god of Healing. Hippocrates was popular both as an expert and a professor of medicine and he professed that awareness of the body is contingent on the understanding of the whole manbody mind soul (nature) spirit. There is also the association in Platos arguments that Hippocrates travelled throughout the Greek city-states and that like the great sophists and rhetoricians who were his contemporaries he came to Athens to practice and teach his art.
The Alexandrian narratives of the life and times of Hippocrates are full of fascinating stories. He was born in the year 460 B.C. descended from Hercules as well as from Aesculaius. He studied medicine and philosophy from eminent tutors and journeyed over the entire Greek world healing a Macedonian dictator of the disorder of love purging the plague from Athens by setting conspicuous fires in the public squares refused to give medical treatment to the King Persia and dying at a seasoned old agethe dates range from 375 to 351 B.C.at Larissa in Thessaly where his tomb could still be seen in the second century A.D. Legend holds that the honey of the bees that swarmed at his tomb would provide healing to the mouth an honor to the man who according to Celsus was as renowned for expressiveness as for wisdom and knowledge.
For subsequent generations Hippocrates has been as he was for Galen (A.D. 129-200) the father and the legislator of medicine for the Romans the superlative physician who with purity and with holiness lived his life and practiced his art."
First do no harm
Hippocrates in addition to being the Father of ancient medicine wrote the Hippocratic Oath which doctors for thousands of years were required to swear to uphold in order to receive their medical license. Here is an excerpt from the Hippocratic Oath:
I will follow that system of regimen which according to my ability and judgment I consider for the benefit of my patients and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner I will not give to a woman a pessary to produce abortion. With purity and with holiness I will pass my life and practice my Art. I will not cut persons laboring under the stone but will leave this to be done by men who are practitioners of this work. Into whatever houses I enter I will go into them for the benefit of the sick and will abstain from every voluntary act of mischief and corruption; and further from the seduction of females or males of freemen and slaves.
Note how inseparable medicine is from religion morality ethics purity" even holiness" and Hippocrates was a pagan Greek and Galen a pagan Roman yet their singular transcendent level of righteousness for their art" has descended down through the ages.
Hippocrates and Galen in Classical History
Medicine according to the article in the Great Books of the Western World is the name of an art of a science or group of sciences and of a learned profession whose members are proficient in these sciences and experienced in the practice of the art." By origin it applies to a litany of healing drugs physics or other medicines recommended by the doctor. The antiquated but apt tradition of the English word physic" as the definition for the art practice and profession of what in modern times is referred to as medicine" implies that the Greek root word indicates specifically that the physician in the same manner as the physicist is an apprentice of nature.
Another historic usage of medicine" specifies its possibility and contacts in the western tradition. When feudal institutions originated the university in the Middle Ages the basic divisions of learning then exemplified in its organization revealed diverse methods of learning as well as differences in subject matter. The trilogy disciplines of medicine law and theology not only ordered their students in diverse divisions of knowledge but also taught them for separate applications of knowledge to practice.
The Roman father of medicine Galen often repeats this wise aphorismthat nothing is done by Nature in vain" which provides a principle for physiological research in addition to the procedures of medical art. Nature according to Galen works not by the outside influence of part upon part but by its talents or powers for the presentation of natural purposes meanings and the creation of natural effects. Galens polemic contrary to the mechanistic means directs him to the contrary conclusion of his initial sayingnothing is done by Nature in vain." Heres the distinction as Hippocrates views nature as the model for art (e.g. medicine) to follow Galen refers to Nature as an artist for the purpose of drawing a sharp distinction against all mechanical formations and ideas.
From Hippocratic Oath to Darwins evolution racism to Nazi death camps
How has the moral ethics of ancient medicine devolved in modern times? In a 1938 letter to Dr. Clarence Gamble Margaret Sanger founder of Planned Parenthood foreshadowed pseudo-science like evolution and eugenics which Hitler and the Nazis would later exploit using science and medical justification of the natural inferiority of undesirables" to create radical policies to eradicate the Jews during World War II and the Holocaust. One year before Hitlers blitzkrieg roared into Poland thus unleashing World War II Sanger wrote We should hire three or four colored ministers preferably with social-service backgrounds and with engaging personalities. The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We dont want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population. And the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members."
Tragically the academy for centuries has used pseudo-science superstition and perverted scientism as demonstrated in the Sanger letter to Gamble above to not only to establish but to force a consensus" science and accepted" medical theories to justify proscribed racists ideas even to this day. The Nazis called this tactic Gleichschaltung" (e.g. consensus or forcing into line). For example pseudo-science racialism scientism and specious medical policy played a leading role in solidifying the historical line from the French Revolution (1789-99) which was a leftist revolution leading directly to the near eradication of Christianity and Judaism in France but also led to the genocide against clergy nuns and those who Robespierre universally condemned as criminals" to Darwins evolution atheism of the 1860s to Nietzsches polemic of Christianity as a slave morality" and his God is dead" philosophy of the 1880s-1900 to Hitlers contention in Mein Kampf (1925): If I can accept a divine Commandment its this one: Thou shalt preserve the species" put into medical practice by Hitlers Angel of Death" Dr. Josef Mengele. These few historical examples demonstrate the deification and propagation of scientism and politically-contrived medicine to promote a perverse socialist atheistic worldview (what the Nazis called Weltanschauung") which continues in modern times under pseudo-scientific consensus of global warming" legalization of marijuana and other strong psychiatric drugs to treat" ADHD which critics contend simply is the far end of a normal range of behavior not an underlying genetic condition and of course Obamacare (socialism in medicine).
Epilogue: The Nature of ancient medicine = LIFE
A secondary leitmotiv of this essay is this: If children studied the Classics and adults obeyed the rational logic of the Classics Obamacare (socialism) wouldnt exist at least not as a dominating political economic policy.
You must look at the history of medicine to understand the necessity of why communists socialists liberals and progressives have worked so hard since the French Revolution to remove or pervert every vestige of Americas Judeo-Christian traditions. Looking at ancient sources we see the unbreakable connection between the medical nature Hippocrates and Galen embraced as both having overtly biblical derivation. For example Numbers 21:7 readsSo Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake he lived. I dont know how Hippocrates and Galen up to our current medical profession adopted the biblical symbolism of Moses bronze snake on a pole as a universal symbol of healing. To me this demonstrates that the medical profession from its ancient beginnings always linked medicine to morality religion and to the prolonging of life. This leitmotiv of ancient medicine mandates a synthesis between God and healing life over death healing over disease natural medicine over poison pills.
Another example in the Bible we read in Ecclesiasticus: Honor the physician for the need thou hast of him: for the most High hath created him. For all healing is from God…" The Old and New Testaments are replete with examples of the washing of hands" usually in the context of priestly service to God through animal sacrifice however that ritual perhaps saved the lives of European Jewry during the Black Death of the Late Middle Ages (1340-1400) from suffering nearly the same causalities from the Bubonic plague as their gentile neighbors (one third of Europe or between 100-125 million) died because they didnt know about how germs could be carried on fleas and rats nor did they understand how germs can be transmitted to others by not washing your hands. Orthodox Jews were scrupulous in cleanliness regarding food preparation and ancient medicine. Gentiles in contrast well into the 1800s the doctor doubling as a barber or butcher and wouldnt wash his hands before performing invasive medical procedures. This was a major cause why life expectancy was so low before 1900.
The current Veterans Administration healthcare scandal with Obama and Secretary Shinseki which has to date allowed over 100 U.S. veterans in 26 VA facilities to die waiting on healthcare treatment is only a prelude to the living hell all Americans will be subjected to under Obamacare which the overwhelming majority of the medical profession willingly endorsed. For those who study the Classics who understand history pragmatism and how politics careerism cowardice and human nature are conflated together will deduce that the medical Marxism of Obamacare is only the next step for these Democrat Socialists to establish a Novus ordo seclorum (New World Order) a Final Solution" against America our Judeo-Christian traditions to deconstruct Western civilization… brick-by-brick… institution-by-institution.
America to which medical worldview will you side with? To which natural view of medicine will you embrace and promote? Hippocrates and Galens First do no harm or Margaret Sangers We want to exterminate…?
*N.B.: This essay is based in part on ideas from Great Books of the Western World Robert Maynard Hutchins Editor-in-Chief (1952) Vol. 3 chap. 55Medicine and Vol. 10 Hippocrates and Galen
First do no harm."
~ Aphorism attributed to the Hippocratic Oath
We should hire three or four colored ministers preferably with social-service backgrounds and with engaging personalities. The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We dont want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population via abortion racism. And the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members."
~ 1938 letter by Margaret Sanger to friend Dr. Clarence Gamble (founder of the Procter & Gamble Corp.)
Prologue to Hippocrates and Galen: legislators of ancient medicine
Our understanding of the historical Hippocrates (460370 B.C.) is nearly entirely dependent upon Plato. In Platos works like the Protagoras and the Phaedrus we learn that Hippocrates and Socrates were of the same generation that he was a native of Cos and an Asclepiad a follower that is of a family or guild that traced its origin to this Greek god of Healing. Hippocrates was popular both as an expert and a professor of medicine and he professed that awareness of the body is contingent on the understanding of the whole manbody mind soul (nature) spirit. There is also the association in Platos arguments that Hippocrates travelled throughout the Greek city-states and that like the great sophists and rhetoricians who were his contemporaries he came to Athens to practice and teach his art.
The Alexandrian narratives of the life and times of Hippocrates are full of fascinating stories. He was born in the year 460 B.C. descended from Hercules as well as from Aesculaius. He studied medicine and philosophy from eminent tutors and journeyed over the entire Greek world healing a Macedonian dictator of the disorder of love purging the plague from Athens by setting conspicuous fires in the public squares refused to give medical treatment to the King Persia and dying at a seasoned old agethe dates range from 375 to 351 B.C.at Larissa in Thessaly where his tomb could still be seen in the second century A.D. Legend holds that the honey of the bees that swarmed at his tomb would provide healing to the mouth an honor to the man who according to Celsus was as renowned for expressiveness as for wisdom and knowledge.
For subsequent generations Hippocrates has been as he was for Galen (A.D. 129-200) the father and the legislator of medicine for the Romans the superlative physician who with purity and with holiness lived his life and practiced his art."
First do no harm
Hippocrates in addition to being the Father of ancient medicine wrote the Hippocratic Oath which doctors for thousands of years were required to swear to uphold in order to receive their medical license. Here is an excerpt from the Hippocratic Oath:
I will follow that system of regimen which according to my ability and judgment I consider for the benefit of my patients and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner I will not give to a woman a pessary to produce abortion. With purity and with holiness I will pass my life and practice my Art. I will not cut persons laboring under the stone but will leave this to be done by men who are practitioners of this work. Into whatever houses I enter I will go into them for the benefit of the sick and will abstain from every voluntary act of mischief and corruption; and further from the seduction of females or males of freemen and slaves.
Note how inseparable medicine is from religion morality ethics purity" even holiness" and Hippocrates was a pagan Greek and Galen a pagan Roman yet their singular transcendent level of righteousness for their art" has descended down through the ages.
Hippocrates and Galen in Classical History
Medicine according to the article in the Great Books of the Western World is the name of an art of a science or group of sciences and of a learned profession whose members are proficient in these sciences and experienced in the practice of the art." By origin it applies to a litany of healing drugs physics or other medicines recommended by the doctor. The antiquated but apt tradition of the English word physic" as the definition for the art practice and profession of what in modern times is referred to as medicine" implies that the Greek root word indicates specifically that the physician in the same manner as the physicist is an apprentice of nature.
Another historic usage of medicine" specifies its possibility and contacts in the western tradition. When feudal institutions originated the university in the Middle Ages the basic divisions of learning then exemplified in its organization revealed diverse methods of learning as well as differences in subject matter. The trilogy disciplines of medicine law and theology not only ordered their students in diverse divisions of knowledge but also taught them for separate applications of knowledge to practice.
The Roman father of medicine Galen often repeats this wise aphorismthat nothing is done by Nature in vain" which provides a principle for physiological research in addition to the procedures of medical art. Nature according to Galen works not by the outside influence of part upon part but by its talents or powers for the presentation of natural purposes meanings and the creation of natural effects. Galens polemic contrary to the mechanistic means directs him to the contrary conclusion of his initial sayingnothing is done by Nature in vain." Heres the distinction as Hippocrates views nature as the model for art (e.g. medicine) to follow Galen refers to Nature as an artist for the purpose of drawing a sharp distinction against all mechanical formations and ideas.
From Hippocratic Oath to Darwins evolution racism to Nazi death camps
How has the moral ethics of ancient medicine devolved in modern times? In a 1938 letter to Dr. Clarence Gamble Margaret Sanger founder of Planned Parenthood foreshadowed pseudo-science like evolution and eugenics which Hitler and the Nazis would later exploit using science and medical justification of the natural inferiority of undesirables" to create radical policies to eradicate the Jews during World War II and the Holocaust. One year before Hitlers blitzkrieg roared into Poland thus unleashing World War II Sanger wrote We should hire three or four colored ministers preferably with social-service backgrounds and with engaging personalities. The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We dont want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population. And the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members."
Tragically the academy for centuries has used pseudo-science superstition and perverted scientism as demonstrated in the Sanger letter to Gamble above to not only to establish but to force a consensus" science and accepted" medical theories to justify proscribed racists ideas even to this day. The Nazis called this tactic Gleichschaltung" (e.g. consensus or forcing into line). For example pseudo-science racialism scientism and specious medical policy played a leading role in solidifying the historical line from the French Revolution (1789-99) which was a leftist revolution leading directly to the near eradication of Christianity and Judaism in France but also led to the genocide against clergy nuns and those who Robespierre universally condemned as criminals" to Darwins evolution atheism of the 1860s to Nietzsches polemic of Christianity as a slave morality" and his God is dead" philosophy of the 1880s-1900 to Hitlers contention in Mein Kampf (1925): If I can accept a divine Commandment its this one: Thou shalt preserve the species" put into medical practice by Hitlers Angel of Death" Dr. Josef Mengele. These few historical examples demonstrate the deification and propagation of scientism and politically-contrived medicine to promote a perverse socialist atheistic worldview (what the Nazis called Weltanschauung") which continues in modern times under pseudo-scientific consensus of global warming" legalization of marijuana and other strong psychiatric drugs to treat" ADHD which critics contend simply is the far end of a normal range of behavior not an underlying genetic condition and of course Obamacare (socialism in medicine).
Epilogue: The Nature of ancient medicine = LIFE
A secondary leitmotiv of this essay is this: If children studied the Classics and adults obeyed the rational logic of the Classics Obamacare (socialism) wouldnt exist at least not as a dominating political economic policy.
You must look at the history of medicine to understand the necessity of why communists socialists liberals and progressives have worked so hard since the French Revolution to remove or pervert every vestige of Americas Judeo-Christian traditions. Looking at ancient sources we see the unbreakable connection between the medical nature Hippocrates and Galen embraced as both having overtly biblical derivation. For example Numbers 21:7 readsSo Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake he lived. I dont know how Hippocrates and Galen up to our current medical profession adopted the biblical symbolism of Moses bronze snake on a pole as a universal symbol of healing. To me this demonstrates that the medical profession from its ancient beginnings always linked medicine to morality religion and to the prolonging of life. This leitmotiv of ancient medicine mandates a synthesis between God and healing life over death healing over disease natural medicine over poison pills.
Another example in the Bible we read in Ecclesiasticus: Honor the physician for the need thou hast of him: for the most High hath created him. For all healing is from God…" The Old and New Testaments are replete with examples of the washing of hands" usually in the context of priestly service to God through animal sacrifice however that ritual perhaps saved the lives of European Jewry during the Black Death of the Late Middle Ages (1340-1400) from suffering nearly the same causalities from the Bubonic plague as their gentile neighbors (one third of Europe or between 100-125 million) died because they didnt know about how germs could be carried on fleas and rats nor did they understand how germs can be transmitted to others by not washing your hands. Orthodox Jews were scrupulous in cleanliness regarding food preparation and ancient medicine. Gentiles in contrast well into the 1800s the doctor doubling as a barber or butcher and wouldnt wash his hands before performing invasive medical procedures. This was a major cause why life expectancy was so low before 1900.
The current Veterans Administration healthcare scandal with Obama and Secretary Shinseki which has to date allowed over 100 U.S. veterans in 26 VA facilities to die waiting on healthcare treatment is only a prelude to the living hell all Americans will be subjected to under Obamacare which the overwhelming majority of the medical profession willingly endorsed. For those who study the Classics who understand history pragmatism and how politics careerism cowardice and human nature are conflated together will deduce that the medical Marxism of Obamacare is only the next step for these Democrat Socialists to establish a Novus ordo seclorum (New World Order) a Final Solution" against America our Judeo-Christian traditions to deconstruct Western civilization… brick-by-brick… institution-by-institution.
America to which medical worldview will you side with? To which natural view of medicine will you embrace and promote? Hippocrates and Galens First do no harm or Margaret Sangers We want to exterminate…?
*N.B.: This essay is based in part on ideas from Great Books of the Western World Robert Maynard Hutchins Editor-in-Chief (1952) Vol. 3 chap. 55Medicine and Vol. 10 Hippocrates and Galen