Our Girls

by Dio Lewis

En passant it may be remarked that nothing but the blind, stupid prejudice of men would oppose the introduction of women to the medical profession.

It is a profession which belongs to them. Nature herself has decreed it, and when the hard, selfish, overbearing tyranny of men shall permit things to take their natural course, we shall have very few men in the medical profession.

But my object in this chapter is to speak of a fundamental misapprehension underlying the profession of medicine. This misapprehension is, that diseases are local.

Let me give an illustration or two.

A doctor attempts a case of catarrh. He opens the nostril with his speculum, turns in a strong light, takes a long, careful look, then examines, perhaps with a microscope, some of the fluid which the patient blows out of his nose, and then the doctor says, "Ahem! ahem! this is a case of sick nose. It is a case of nasal catarrh. The pituitary membrane is congested, and is secreting a morbid mucus. Ahem! you really should have called upon me before."

Then the doctor proceeds to inject various stimulating caustic fluids into the nostrils. He gives a snuff. He introduces a crooked tube into the man's mouth, and turns the end up back of his palate, and, getting into the back opening of the nostrils, he blows in certain medicated powders. The nose is better at once, the treatment is continued, the patient is soon cured; with the first cold or stomach derangement the symptoms return, the second cure is more difficult, the third is very difficult, and then the patient goes to another doctor, who tells him he is very sorry that he has been so quacked, but he will make a sure cure this time. He goes through with the same performance, with similar results. The patient now abandons hope, and goes snuffling about, to the great discomfort of himself and friends. In just this way a hundred maladies are treated,—an inflamed eye, a noise in the ear, a rheumatic knee, a gouty toe, a pain in the liver or spine, a sore throat, and so on through the whole list. The doctor finds the sick place, and then proceeds to attack it.

The idea that the disease is in a certain part of the system, and that the artillery must be directed to that precise spot, is not only common among the doctors, but is so plausible that the people all adopt it. This is the fundamental misapprehension underlying the disastrous failure in medicine.

The catarrh is not of the nose, but of the man, showing itself in the nose. The bronchitis is not a disease of the throat, but of the man, showing itself in the throat. The sore eye is not a disease of the eye, but of the man, showing itself in the eye.

A local disease is impossible. The organism is one and not many. Even a gun-shot wound is not a local trouble. Suppose a man's little finger is shot away. The man is not in the condition of a table with a corner shot off; he is not even in the condition of a steam engine with a valve or screw destroyed. Neither approaches the case of the man with the maimed hand. The table is, except the small point touched by the bullet, exactly as before. Feel of it. There is no unusual warmth, no trembling, no sympathy with the wounded corner. In fact, the table is quite well, thank you, except where it was hit. Now examine the man with the hurt finger. Look at his face. How pale and excited. Feel his pulse. It is 120 instead of 75. The skin of his toes is in a peculiar condition. What is the matter with this man's toes? They are suffering from a wound in his little finger.

While no doctor fails to talk much of the vis medicatrix naturae, while the condition of the general system is constantly invoked to explain this and that, the treatment of most local affections is conducted on the plan of repairing the wound in the corner of the table.