Читать книгу Medicine in the Middle Ages. Extracts from "Le Moyen Age Medical" by Dr. Edmond Dupouy; translated by T. C. Minor онлайн

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Montaigne insisted that medicine owed its existence only to mankind’s fear of death and pain, an impatience at poor health and a furious and indiscreet thirst for a speedy cure, but the author of the “Essays” adds in concluding: “I honor physicians, not following the feeling of necessity, but for the love of themselves, having seen many honest doctors who were honorable and well worthy of being loved.”

The reputation for disagreement among doctors so much insisted on by Montaigne has served as a well-worn text for many other critics.

In Les Serres of Guillaume Bouchet, a contemporary of the author, we find the same shaft of sarcasm directed at physicians. Where will you find men in any other profession save that of medicine who envy and hate each other so heartily? What other profession on earth is given over to such bitter disagreements? How can common people be expected to honor and respect experts and savants so-called when the professors call each other ignoramusses and asses? Call these doctors into a case and one after the other they will disagree as to the diagnosis as well as to the method of cure. As Pellisson wrote: