The Act of 151 1, signed into law by King Henry the Eighth, in England, made it an offence to practice physic or surgery without the approval of a panel of “experts.” This Act was formalized in 1518 with the founding of the Royal College of Physicians. The attempts to build up this medical monopoly have now created a modem plague, while the resolve to maintain this monopoly has cost the public dearly in money and suffering.Īlmost five centuries ago, one of the first attempts to set up this monopoly took place in England. Perhaps it was the awareness of the personal risks of this profession which gave rise to the plan for monopoly, to level out the risks and rewards among a chosen few. Curing a monarch could bring great rewards but failing to cure him could be a fatal mistake. The poor rarely encountered a doctor, as medical ministrations were generally confined to the rich and powerful.
Until the late nineteenth century, doctors practiced as free lance agents, which meant that they assumed all the risks of their decisions. Michael Faraday discovered ether, and Wilhelm Surtner isolated morphine from opium. Some two hundred years ago, the era of modern medicine was ushered in by Sir Humphry Davy’s discovery of the anesthetic properties of nitrous oxide. Midwives used ergot to contract the uterus. Burned sponge at one time was used as a treatment for goiter its content of iodine provided the cure. Cinchona bark, the source of quinine, was used to treat malaria chaulmoogra oil was used for leprosy, and ipecac for amoebic dysentery. In the sixteenth century, Arabs used colchicum, a saffron derivative, for rheumatic pains and gout. Hyoscyamus contains scopolamine, used to induce “twilight sleep” in modem medicine. In the East this was obtained from the flowers of santonin in the Western Hemisphere it was pressed from the fruit and leaves of chenopodium.Īnalgesics or pain relievers were alcohol, hyoscyamus leaves, and opium. Intestinal worms were treated by aspidium roots (the male fern), pomegranate bark, or wormseed oil. As late as 1700, commonly used medications included cathartics such as senna, aloe, figs and castor oil. The recently discovered Ebers papyrus shows that as early as 1600 B.C., more than nine hundred prescriptions were available to the physician, including opium as a pain-killing drug. An examination of the record shows that the actual methods of medical practice have not changed that much through the eons. Not only does the client wonder if he is getting what he is paying for, but in many instances, he is dismayed to find that he has actually gotten something he had not bargained for. The practice of medicine may not be the world’s oldest profession, but it is often seen to be operating on much the same principles. The story of the Medical Conspiracy Against America