The State of Medicine at the Time of the Crusades

It is fitting that I begin by letting you know how much I value the compliment you pay me in asking me to address you on the occasion of the opening of the new session. It is a great honour to have Mr. Corkey introduce me to this distinguished audience. To our younger colleagues here for the first time, I would like to add a few words of welcome to those of our Chairman and to say that you have chosen a good Medical School and a good time in its history. The Royal is in the forefront of medical progress, whether it be radiography, in radium therapy, in thoracic surgery, in cardiology, or in the teaching of medicine and surgery generally. Ladies and gentlemen, I wish you a successful year's work. I must confess to a certain diffidence in appearing before you to deliver the address this morning, particularly in the light of the very high standards set by my predecessors. The choice of subject was, in itself, one of my greatest difficulties. Osler, in his great book Aequaifmitas, says, "There are, in truth, no specialities in medicine, since to know fully many of the important diseases a man must be familiar with their manifestations in many organs." I felt that it was desirable to go beyond the boundaries of my own speciality, and I propose, therefore, to tell you about the contribution to medicine by the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, and by the Saracens, the Arabs, their adversaries in the Wars of the Crusades. I therefore describe it as "The State of Medicine at the time of the Crusades." G. K. Chesterton once pointed out that, to understand the culture and civilisation of a people, one had to look at their religious beliefs. The Emperor Julian, the apostate, in the fourth century A.D., said, "Now we see what it is that makes these Christians such powerful enemies of our gods, it is the brotherly love which they manifest toward strangers and toward the sick and the poor, the thoughtful manner in which they care for the dead, and the purity of their own lives." The connection between medicine and religion is buried deep in history. The explanation for this is quite simple. Man is both body and soul. In its classical meaning, humanism, of which Petrarch was a chief prophet, is defined by J. A. Symonds …