Psychotherapy. James Joseph Walsh
that the surgical treatment was undertaken under the most favorable influence of the stars and that all unfavorable influences had been carefully observed and eliminated. It is hard for us to understand how such ideas could have been maintained for so long in the minds of men whose other attainments clearly show how thorough they were in observing and how profoundly intelligent in reaching conclusions. We should, however, have very little censure for them, since from some other standpoint we find every generation, down to and including our own, jumping at conclusions just as absurd and just as inconsequential. And the practice of astrology was not without its value, for the reassurance given patients by the consciousness that the stars were favorable did much to relieve their anxiety as to the consequences of surgery, lessened shocks, hastened convalescence, and favored recovery.
HERBAL MEDICINE
What is thus exemplified in astronomy and astrology can be found in the story of every other science. After the knowledge of the stars, the next organized branch of information that might deserve the name of science related to plants. This, too, was introduced into medicine, and with more justification than astrology. Most of what was accomplished by early herbal medicine was, however, due to the influence produced on the mind rather than to any physical influence tending to correct pathological conditions. The shape and color of plants, their form, the appearance of their leaves, were all supposed to indicate medical applications for human ailments. The reason for their acceptance was entirely the ideas associated with the plants and not any definite therapeutic effect. Whatever good nine-tenths of all the herbal medication accomplished certainly was by means of the influence on the mind. We have abandoned the use of most herbal remedies in recent years, even many that are still retained in the pharmacopeia, because we have realized their physical incapacity for good.
ALCHEMY
When chemistry, under the old name of alchemy, began to develop, its first study was of minerals, and just as soon as a body of knowledge was acquired chemistry was applied to medicine. All the investigators were engaged in searching for the philosopher's stone, the substance by means of which it was hoped to change base metals into precious. It was generally believed that when this substance was found, it would have wonderful applications to human diseases and would transmute diseased tissues into healthy tissues in the same way that it transformed metals. It was felt that the philosopher's stone would be an elixir of life as well as a master of secrets for wealth. This would seem amusingly childish to us were it not for the fact that in radium we, too, seem to have discovered a philosopher's stone—a substance that transmutes elements. For some years after its discovery we were inclined to think that it must have some wonderful application in medicine and in surgery, and we actually secured many good results until its suggestive value wore off.
The fact that much had been learned about chemicals persuaded men that they must be beneficial to human beings. Thus they were taken with confidence and produced good results. When our modern chemistry developed out of alchemy a great variety of drugs began to be used, and long, complex, many-ingrediented prescriptions were written. Polypharmacy became such an abuse that the time was ripe for Hahnemann, whose principles, if carried to their legitimate conclusions, would require his disciples to give practically nothing to patients and treat them entirely by suggestion.
MATHEMATICAL MEDICINE
When mathematics developed, applications of that science were made to physiology and to medicine. Under the influence of Borelli, the school of Iatro-Mathematical medicine developed and it flourished long after him. Foster, in his "History of Physiology," says:
Borelli was so successful in his mechanical solutions of physiological problems that many coming after him readily rushed to the conclusion that all such problems could be solved by the same methods. Some of his disciples proposed to explain all physiological phenomena by mathematical formulas and hypotheses concerning forces and the shapes and sizes of particles.
MAGNETISM
Magnetism occupied a large place in the minds of the great thinkers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. There is no doubt that Paracelsus accepted, quite literally, what we embody in figurative expressions with regard to magnetism. To him the attraction of sex was magnetic. People had personal magnetism because they possessed physical powers by which they attracted others. He considered that these powers of attraction were expressions in human beings of the power of the magnet in the physical world, and that the two were literally equivalents. Kepler, one of the deepest thinkers of his time, evidently entertained the idea that the magnet represented the soul of the physical world, and that the planets were held in connection with the sun and their satellites with the planets, by magnetic attraction. We now call it the attraction of gravitation. We understand the force no better than before, but have changed the terms. Descartes theorized much along magnetic lines, and felt that by the use of certain expressions he was adding to knowledge, though he was really only multiplying terms.
Human Magnetism.—How seriously the question of human magnetism was taken will perhaps be best appreciated from one old fallacy. For a long period it was supposed that human beings were so highly magnetic that if a man were exposed in an open boat, in perfectly calm weather, in the open sea, where no currents would disturb him, his face would turn to the north, under the same magnetic influences as caused the needle to point to the north! Many studies of magnetism were made at this time, so that the subject attracted widespread attention. Columbus had made some rather startling observations on his voyage to America with regard to the declination of the magnetic needle, and, during the century following, Norman and Gilbert made interesting studies in the same subject. Father Kircher wrote two books on magnetism and there were a number of others written by university professors. Advantage was taken of this thoroughly scientific interest in magnetism to erect a whole body of pseudo-scientific medicine supposed to be founded on magnetic principles. The same theories were also applied to supposed explanations of various psychological phenomena.
During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the application of magnets was a favorite treatment for a great many diseases. Especially were they useful in the treatment of muscular pains and aches and the chronic diseases which so disturbed men's minds. Many of the joint troubles of the aged, the muscular pains and aches that develop from the wrong use of muscles, and the vague internal discomforts which often disturb men so seriously, were cured by the application of magnets. Perkins' success with his tractors shows how much can be accomplished in this way.
ELECTROTHERAPY
The great development of pseudo-science in medicine remained for the era following the scientific investigation of electricity. With the discovery of the Leyden jar and its startling spark, a new and marvelous healing agent seemed to be at hand. It is quite amusing to read the accounts of the influence of the spark of the Leyden jar on the well and on the ailing. In my "Catholic Churchmen in Science" (Dolphin Press, Phila., 1909) I summed up the situation.
Winckler of Leipzig said that the first time he tried the jar, he found great convulsions by it in his body; it put his blood into great agitation; he was afraid of an ardent fever, and was obliged to use refrigerating medicines. He felt a heaviness in his head as if a stone lay upon it. Twice it gave him a bleeding at the nose. After the second shock his wife could scarcely walk, and, though a week later, her curiosity stronger than her fears, she tried it once more, it caused her to bleed at the nose after taking it only once. Many men were terrified by it, and even serious professors describe entirely imaginary symptoms. The jar was taken around Europe for exhibition purposes, and did more to awaken popular interest than all the publications of the learned with regard to electricity, in all the preceding centuries.
The extent to which the curative power of electric sparks from the Leyden jar was supposed to go is best appreciated from a list of the affections that one distinguished electro-therapeutist claimed could be not only benefited, but absolutely cured by its employment. It included pulmonic fever, under which title practically all the more or less acute diseases of the chest were included, and some at least of the sub acute; dropsy, by which was meant every effusion into the abdominal cavity no matter what its cause; dysentery, under which was included at that time not only the specific dysenteries but many of the summer complaints and some typhoid fevers; diarrhea, including all the intestinal