Soon afterwards the Faculty named him Docteur-Régent, and appointed him to the post of Professor of Materia Medica. “Hecquet had soon numerous and illustrious patients, and his services were eagerly sought for, particularly in religious communities and in hospitals. He attached himself to that of Charity.” In 1712 he was named Dean of the Faculty. In the midst of so much work, he found time to publish several medical books.
“He exercised his art with a noble disinterestedness. The poor were his favourite patients. He presented himself at the houses of the rich only when absolutely obliged, or when courtesy required it. He had much studied his art, and contributed with all his power, to advance it, as well by his writings as by his guidance and encouragement of young physicians.... He was in correspondence with the most famous savants and physicians of his age. His style in Latin is correct, and does not want eloquence; in French he is more negligent, and a little unpolished. He was animated (vif) in debate, and strongly attached to his opinions; but he sought Truth in good faith.”
Amongst his numerous works are:—
De l’Indécence aux Hommes d’Accoucher les Femmes, et de l’Obligation, de Celles-ci de nourrir leurs enfants. (On the Indecency of Male Physicians Attending Women in Child-Birth) 1708. Traité des Dispenses du Carême, 1709—his most celebrated book. De la Digestion et des Maladies de l’Estomac, 1712. Novus Medicinæ Conspectus cum Appendice De Peste, 1722. “He there combats the various systems upon the origin of diseases, which he attributes to the disorders which supervene, in accordance with the laws which direct the movement of the blood:” the Plague, upon which he writes, was desolating the south of France at that time. Also, at this period, various brochures upon the Small-Pox.
La Médecine, la Chirurgie, et la Pharmacie des Pauvres (1740–2), his most popular book—La Brigandage de la Médecine (1755), which he supplemented with Brigandage de la Chirurgie, et de la Pharmacie—will sufficiently mark his attitude towards the orthodox Schools of Medicine of his day. Le Naturalisme des Convulsions dans les Maladies (1755), with several other books upon the same subject. The history of the Convulsionnaires occupies a curious episode in the religious history of the period, as it has occupied, and, in some measure still, in fact, occupies the attention of physiologists and psychologists of our own age. Hecquet, with the physiologists of the present time, attributes the phenomena to physical and natural causes. La Médecine Naturelle: “in this work the author alleges that it is not in the blood only that is to be sought the causes of maladies, but also in the nervous fluid.”[300]
The books in which he treats of reform in Dietetics are the Traité des Dispenses and La Médecine des Pauvres.
However dietetically heterodox and heretical, the author of The Treatise on Dispensations was of unsuspected ecclesiastical as well as theological orthodoxy; yet he takes occasion, at the outset of his book, to reproach his Church with its indifferentism towards so essentially important a matter as Dietetics—scientific or moral:—
“It will, perhaps, be found that much theology enters into this undertaking. We acknowledge it. One might even expect that some zealous ecclesiastic or other would have done himself the credit of sustaining so beautiful a cause (que quelque ecclesiastique zelé se seroit fait gloire de soutenir une si belle cause). It might be hoped, especially in an age like ours, when physical science is in honour and for the benefit of everyone, and in which Medicine has become the property of every condition.... It ought then to have been the duty of so many Abbés, Monks and Religious Orders, who invest themselves with the titles of physicians—who receive their pay, who fill their employments—to advocate this part of ecclesiastical discipline [abstinence]. But, instead of doing so, though they undertake the care of the body, they, in fact, apply themselves solely to the healing of maladies.... One can see enough of it, nevertheless, to be convinced that the public has gained less from their secrets than they themselves, while their patients die more than ever under their hands....”
In Chap. VI., Que les Fruits, les Grains, les Legumes sont les Alimens les plus Naturels à l’Homme, after appealing to Gen. i. and “the Garden of Eden,” Hecquet proceeds to insist that our foods should be analogous and consistent with the juices which maintain our life; and these are Fruits, Grains, Seeds, and Roots. But prejudice, of long standing, opposes itself to this truth. The false ideas attached to certain traditional terms have warped the minds of the majority of the world, and they have succeeded in persuading themselves that it is upon stimulating foods that depend the strength and health of men. From thence has come the love of wine, of spirituous liquors, and of gross meats. The ambiguity (équivoque) comes from confounding the idea of Remedy with that of Food.