Medical Delusions by C.C. Vanderbeck 1879

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Medical Delusions by C.C. Vanderbeck M.D., Ph.D,, Of Allentown, N.J. 1879

In the course of my readings, many medical delusions have come to my attention, and have been entered, for future reference, in my scrap book. It may be of interest to some of the readers of the Reporter to reproduce some of them.

Prof. Robley Dunglison, in an introductory address to the course of Institutes of Medicine in Jefferson Medical College, delivered November 4th, 1842, on certain medical delusions, says: "Mysterious as are the functions executed by living beings, and especially by the most elevated of them—man; intricate and inscrutable as many of them have been, are, and must probably ever remain; it is not strange that attempts should have been made, in all ages, to penetrate the obscurity; and that singular and fantastic notions should have received, in the infancy of science, a degree of attention of which they were undeserving."

Magnetism, in its earliest history, was considered a most potent agent for the cure of many diseases.

An ancient author relates the case of a peasant, who, having swallowed a knife, had it drawn through the parietes of the abdomen by a magnetic plaster. Dr. Dunglison says that some of the older surgeons of Ambrose Pare's time, in cases of hernia, made the patient swallow a magnet, and placed iron filings on the hernial protrusion, to draw it inward. He tells us also, that Paracelsus and Von Helmont recommended a magnetic plaster to the abdomen when abortion was threatened, to draw the foetus upward. In these same times all wounds inflicted by metallic bodies were treated with the magnet. It was carried so far, that magnetizing the weapon that had produced the injury was deemed all-sufficient.

Hence, arose weapon salves. The following recipe is a specimen of the character of these salves:—"Take of moss growing on the head of a thief, who has been hanged and left in the air; of real mummy; of human blood, still warm, of each one ounce; of human suet, two ounces; of linseed orl, turpentine and Armenian bole, of each two drachms; mix all in a mortar and keep the salve in an oblong, narrow urn."

From two to four centuries have passed since such ridiculous ideas were in vogue concerning the magnet, among the highly educated of the times.

It is a question whether a delusion ever entirely dies out. Appearing at some time of its history, even among the educated, it finally is pushed back to the ignorant classes, among whom it may be retained for ages. Like the grains of corn found in the Egyptian catacombs, hidden for centuries in the dark chambers of the dead, they need but a favorable opportunity to spring up and produce a luxuriant harvest. So the seeds of delusion are retained among the superstitious, and in the fullness of time, under favorable circumstances, they may bear an abundant harvest of error.

Within a year a blooming, but ignorant, mulatto damsel earnestly requested me to procure for her a magnet, that a truant lover might be attracted back to her side and arms. It is to be trusted that our young ladies will not adopt the hanging of a magnet from the vinaigrette, to aid them in attracting and charming young gentlemen at the sea side, or in the drawing room.

Is it not, also, the recognition of these latent seeds of delusion among the ignorant, that leads quack medicine venders to apply the term "magnetic" to many of their mixtures? Thus, we hear of magnetic liniments, plasters, salves, pills and syrups; magnetic disks and touches, and so on, through an extensive list. Some of the other catch-names used by these villains to delude the people may be gathered from a price current of proprietary medicines. For instance: Electric, infallible, scattering, volcanic, oil of life, golden, magic, voltaic, etc., etc.

In my library I have a little book, 130 years old, published in London, called the "Problems of Aristotle," from which may be gathered a good idea of the state of scientific knowledge and of the errors of his age.

We are wont to call our age a materialistic one, but what is more material than the explanation given by Aristotle twenty-two hundred years ago, why the brain is moist? He says, "because it may easily receive any impression, which moisture can best do, as it appeareth in wax, which doth easily receive the print of the seal when it is soft." The work abounds with allusions to the banefulness of a certain fluid called phlegm, if existing in excess in any part; also to the methods taken by Nature to relieve this condition of excess in a part. The secretion from the mucous membrane lining the nose and frontal bones was considered to flow from the brain. One of the reasons he gives why Nature made the nostrils is, because the phlegm which doth proceed from the brain is purged by them; and men sneeze so that the sight and brain should thereby be purged from superfluities; giving then the application of this knowledge by advising the use of sneezing medicaments to purge the brain. He cautions us that such persons as cannot sneeze die quickly, because it is a sign their brain is wholly flooded with evil humors. If the amount of sneezing bears any relation to intellection, oh, ye people, ye voters, choose, then, for all positions requiring clear-headedness, the poor hay-fever sufferers. By the way, I would remind all concerned that I am one of these victims. It would compensate very much for the two months of autumnal anguish, if at length it secured for me a presidential chair and a trip around the world.

Aristotle informs us that the heart is continually moving, because in it there's a certain spirit which is more subtle than air, and the retractions and expansions of the same cause the heart to throb and the pulse to beat.

A later school teaches that the proper dose of medicine could be obtained by taking the square of the patient's constitution, and yet no rules were given to determine the constitution. This assertion was quoted and requoted for many years.

Another strange error of ancient times was the idea of the function of the lungs. Fancied acid and alkaline humors were presumed to meet in the heart, to excite effervescence there, which generated heat to an extent that might have been dangerous, had not nature placed the lungs in the vicinity, to act like a pair of bellows, and temper it.

Aristotle also taught that black eyes could see well in the daytime, but not well at night; while gray eyes were just the reverse. He tells us that the nose stands out further than other parts of the body because it is the sink of the brain, by which the phlegm of the brain is purged; and, therefore, it stands forth, lest the other parts should be defiled. He says, moreover, men have more teeth than women; spittle proceeds from the froth of the lungs; birds have no spittle because they have very dry lungs; white spots appear in the finger nails through the mixture of phlegm with the nutriment. A woman which is with child with a boy, has the right pap harder than the left; eating fish and milk at the same time produces leprosy; milk is unwholesome, because it curdles in the stomach; blood is red, because it is like the part in which it is made, i.e., the liver; the seed of a man retained above its due time is converted into some infectious humor; a woman conceives a female child when the seed of man falls into the left side of the matrix; if a woman, after copulation, does lie on the left side, 'tis a girl.

Many herbs having a reputed efficacy in the treatment of various diseases were, in the past, selected because of their form or marks; thus, wood sorrel, being shaped like a heart, is used as a cordial; liverwort for the liver; the celandine, which has yellow juice, for jaundice; herb dragon, which is speckled like a dragon, to counteract the poison of serpents, etc.

Scrofula was the king's evil for seven hundred years, and it was supposed to be curable by the royal touch, from the time of Edward the Confessor (1041), twenty-five years before the Norman conquest, to that of Queen Anne (1714). The last person touched in England was Dr. Johnson, in 1712, when only thirty months old, by Queen Anne. On Easter Sunday, 1686, Louis xiv, of France, touched sixteen hundred persons. The practice was introduced by Henry VII, of England, of presenting the person touched with a small gold or silver coin. (Dictionary of Words and Phrases). Scrofula is no longer the king's evil, but as a protection against fire and drowning an occasional advertisement may yet be seen in our daily print, calling for a child's caul. A spray from the rowan tree is no longer a safeguard against an epidemic; yet the bag of camphor or assafoetida is suspended from the neck of old women, to protect them from miasm and contagium. The desire for infallible remedies and potent protections is, indeed, as strong to-day as at any time in the history of man. This makes a rich field for quack medicine venders to work in.

Is there not something saddening, and even sickening, in the evident success which attends the pretensions to cure chronic and irremediable diseases, to effect miracles, in short, with the most ridiculous means.

It is the duty of each physician to diffuse the knowledge of physiology and of medicine. Superstition is an offspring of ignorance. Let in the light and you will disperse the darkness of error. It is not true wisdom to hoard, to lock up, your knowledge. Fight quackery with light, with education, and it is defeated. It is to the advantage of quacks to keep the people in ignorance; it is ours to have them well informed.