« statins | Main | Gardasil ad »
July 10, 2007
First Significant Figure in American Medicine
Cotton Mather, of course. Proven by Beall and Shryock in their great study. Fascinating discussion of the man, the medicine and the times. But OW Holmes didn't think so. He faulted Mather for bringing religion into medicine, for pretending that he could talk about medicine as a preacher (ignoring that Mather's training at Harvard at 14 was first in medicine), but most of all for the ignorant view of medicine. In this last, he ignores that Mather was far ahead of his contemporaries (even the best trained) in many of his cures. Holmes lived and wrote when the scientific mindset was just coming into its own, and before its fatal flaws were revealed.
Mather was responsible for the smallpox inoculation, the first proponent of the modern germ theory. Perhaps more importantly, he designed statistical analysis to test the usefulness of inoculation. But most importantly of all, he did not lose sight of the humanity of the sick, nor the providence of God in the affairs of men through it all.
| By Robert Maddox | 11:25 PM