Telling the Public about Medicine *B.M.A. Popular Lecture: Bristol, Wednesday, 24th November, 1954.
نویسنده
چکیده
Ever since there were doctors they have had to consider the problem of telling public about medicine. For many centuries it was not really a big problem. Medicine was mostly magic. It was a mixture of Babylonian numerology, Arabian chemy, medieval horoscopy and inspired water-divining, or uromancy. Ihe profession disagreed about a lot of things. Whether seven was a better dumber than fourteen. Whether bleeding the patient when the moon was waxing tI^S more effective than leeching when the moon was on the wane. But on one ftlng they were united. Medicine was a mystery?and the more mysterious it c?uld be kept the better. The idea of taking the public into their confidence simply neyer occurred to them. They were engaged in the practice of magic. And the j^ost amateur magician knows that the effect of his tricks disappears if the audience ft?ws how they are done. So for a long time the orthodox professional view in r\ country was very much in favour of keeping the public in the dark. Obviously when medicine was compounded more of myths and magic than of Sense and science there were good reasons for this attitude. But as medicine became j^?re rational and more scientific, the reasons for telling the public and winning eir confidence were strengthened, and the reasons for preserving the aura of Mystery had less and less force.
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