Pepys began to suffer from eyestrain in 1663 when he was 30. It was probably longsightedness combined with astigmatism, the latter untreatable then. He turned to the great spectacle maker John Turlington, who gave him the wholly wrong advice to use concave lenses rather than convex ones, and that reading glasses were the worst thing he could use. On the advice of Robert Boyle he consulted Dr Daubeny Turberville, the leading ophthalmologist of the day, but as Pepys himself noted, one who had never seen an eye dissected until 1668. He prescribed eyedrops, purges, pills and bleeding. Pepys’ eye problems lead him to abandon keeping his famous diary in the fear (unfounded, as it happened) that he was going blind.
*Western *medicine?!? :dubious: Traditional Chinese medicine still believes in “chi” .:rolleyes: It’s true that many Asian cultures did have higher standards of personal cleanliness than some areas of medieval Europe, but the fact that the “practitioner” happened to wash his hands was purely a cultural thing, not medical.
I’m a pediatrician. You cannot imagine how much work I have to do to be able to do nothing much of the time. It would be faster and easier most of those rooms to just prescribe something.
And it is not just that parents want “something” done, it is the nature of the profession. You’d think this many years after “first, do no harm” we’d have the concept that the default is no intervention with intervention having the burden of proof to demonstrate itself the better option down. But we don’t. Antibiotics are still prescribed for questionable indications, some screening is still done despite the lack of evidence that it causes more goods than harms. And when docs do suggest that something would be worse or no better than nothing patients flock to “alternative” approaches that are even worse.
I’m just saying that if you were transferred back into the past somehow (and given the language knowledge and etc. to fit in with society of the day), regardless of how much modern knowledge you have you wouldn’t have been taken seriously. People would have just thought you crazy. Who did you apprentice under? Nobody? Feh! I’ll see the expert thank you.
You might be able to make a difference, but you’d be fighting all of society, kicking and clawing the entire way. And in the end you’d probably be killed for witchcraft anyway.
That is why you are the Foreign Expert who went to La Sorbonne, or Heidelberg - surely you can trot out some name from history, heck - with a little forethought I could even manage to swot up a decent forger to make me some letters of recommendation.
Keeping in mind that most people never actually saw the people they corresponded with, they sort of shot of a letter and hoped it 1 got there and 2 they either read latin or could scrounge someone who could.
So, if I were in need of being able to practice medicine as a female - I would dress as a nun, and depending on which century and what country I needed to blend into I would probably end up as a Benedictine nun as I am actually fairly familiar with Dioscorides De materia medica - I actually have a nice repro - original on one page, translation on the facing page. I am also aware of how to do solid fat extracts, warm liquid fat extracts, use of an alembic, use of a bain-marie, brewing and distillation, and rough and ready first aid [though I am aware that penicillin comes from mold, I do not believe I would be able to actually produce any, and as it is a serious allergen to me I would rather not try] and I would be willing to act as catholic as I can to blend in. I have no problem with faking catholicism as it is a survival act.
And as to medications, first do no harm can be construed as permission to use placebos - and there are a fair number of really noxious tasting reasonable harmless plants to make nostrums from, and I will also point out that many of our herbal tasting cordials and bitters started out as tonics and medications and digestives. I would also have no problem prescribing a certain number of ‘Our Fathers’ to go along with the pills and potions and ointments.
[And I am of the firm belief that most mothers could be given sugar pills for their little snowflakes instead of antibiotics just fine, thanks.]
Maybe you’re just a better actor than I, or a better medievalist, but I don’t think I could pass myself off as Catholic in the 1500s or so, even though I am.
I think for purposes of this thought-experiment we can stipulate that anyone finding him or herself in this situation would be able to blend in without extraordinary effort–otherwise everyone’s going to fail the “Who won last year’s World Series of Jousting? Trick question, it was canceled!” test.
