Foreword - History shows that periodically it becomes neces­sary to re-examine some of our folkways in order that we may put them in proper perspective. As Don James has indicated, the practice of medicine has a rich history of folklore with its mixture of fact and fiction. This history is still in the making. Folk and Modern Medicine shows us that we are not far re­moved from the shaman of 40,000 years ago.

01. Catching a cold - Grizzled old Dr. Angus MacGilvary stood by a window of his second-floor office in a small Montana town and stared out at the snow-covered, wind-swept wheatland that stretched north to Canada.

This was in the depression of the Thirties, and the outer waiting room was filled with relief clients awaiting his atten­tion. Behind him, beside his desk, sat a distinguished-appear­ing, gray-haired man dressed in a business suit. The gray-haired man used a large handkerchief and lustily blew his nose.

02. Old-fashioned ways - Despite the tremendous progress that may be made in almost any field of endeavor, we always have those who think that the "old-fashioned" ways, or products, are, or were, better.

With each successive year—which means with each new generation—some of the old-fashioned preferences probably disappear. A few remaining souls still may rather rely upon a horse and buggy than an automobile, but by now they must be very few indeed. Already jet planes are beginning to retire piston-engined planes.

03. Hearts endure - Although the fact that the heart is the center of the body's circulatory system was recognized almost 5,000 years ago by the fkst physician of whom we have any record—Imhotep, an Egyptian—our folk remedies appear to have a rather limited number of specifics for the relief of heart and circulatory ailments.

Possibly this is because of the frequency with which heart ailments were diagnosed as other disorders.

04. Cancer - In all history, probably no disease has been studied more exhaustively and intensely than cancer. Since the beginning of the '50s more than 5,000 scientists have turned their ef­forts to discovering the secret of this most baffling medical mystery. Financial grants that amount to almost $100 million a year are being thrown into the battle against a disease that kills more than a quarter of a million Americans annually.

05. Arthritis - If some friend of yours has complained recently about an attack of rheumatism or arthritis, he is one among some 11 million companion sufferers in the United States. Nor is his complaint new. It is probably age-old.

If we want to dip back into American history for other sufferers, we might go back to the autumn of 1804 and the famous Lewis and Clark Expedition which was camped at the site where Bismark, North Dakota now stands.

06. Diabetes - Fifteen hundred years ago the Greeks found a name for it: diabetes, which literally means "passing enormous quantities of urine." But the recorded history of the disease goes as far back as 1500 B.C. when reference to the symptoms of the disease we know as diabetes was made in ancient Egyptian writings.

However, the first important medical literature about the disease comes from Aretaeus of Cappadocia, a Greek who is thought to have lived between 120 and 200 A.D.

07. The stomach - Several decades ago, in a Michigan village, a small boy named William Cardey came home from school complaining of a pain.

Mrs. Thomas Cardey eyed her son with some concern. Although the freckled, energetic youngster of nine had run the gamut of most childhood diseases, he seldom was ill, and indeed it took a noticeable illness to wring a word of com­plaint from him. Now, Mary Cardey felt of her son's fore­head for an indication of temperature.

08. Ill children - "Never in the history of mankind have children been of­fered such devoted care by the medical profession and allied sciences as they receive today, particularly in the United States."—MD Medical News Magazine, December 1959.

Most children in the United States who have adequate medi­cal care today probably will have immunizing inoculations for whooping cough, diphtheria, tetanus, smallpox, polio­myelitis, and possibly other diseases

09. The oldsters - The old man looked smugly at the young reporter from the town's weekly newspaper.

"Yes, sir," he said. "Ninety today and feel fit as a fiddle. Born in eighteen ten."

"Guess you're the only one that old in the county, Mr. Isherwood," said the reporter.

"Reckon so. Most people I grew up with died thirty-forty years ago. Some longer."

"To what do you attribute your long life, sir?"

"Lots of walkin' and simple eatin'. Never sick much. Never lived too high on the hog."

10. Viruses - Not all who lived in the 17th and 18th centuries died com­paratively early in life. Some lived to ripe old ages.

One of them, a Dutch merchant named Anton van Leeu­wenhoek, lived a full, productive 90 years—1632-1723.

He is important in the annals of medicine because he was one of the greatest of the early microscopists, and he was the first to see and describe bacteria and protozoa.

11. Drugs - It was the year 1553 B.C. in ancient Egypt. The physician had questioned his patient closely and had recognized the symptoms of constipation. Now he quoted from a papyrus that would be found in a tomb in Thebes, Egypt some 3400 years later and identified by Dr. Georg Ebers.

The physican spoke knowingly to the patient's servants: "Take thou: Fresh dates, one part; sea salt, one part; and sebbet juice, one part. Thou shalt mix them in water, place in an earthen receptacle, and put therein: crushed gengent beans, cook together, cool, and let the patient drink warm. Thereafter let him drink sweet beer."

12. Anesthesiology - On a December day in 1809, a farmer waited anxiously while a young doctor, Ephraim McDowell, examined his wife. Mrs. Jane Todd Crawford most certainly appeared to be pregnant, but she was long past her time and still there was no sign of delivery.

The doctor had ridden 60 miles, in midwinter, from remote Danville, Kentucky to help. It was indeed fortunate that there was such a doctor to be had, Farmer Crawford thought. And why the young doctor, who had studied under a famous doctor in Edinburgh, would choose to practice in this pioneer country was difficult to understand. But he had so chosen. And he was here.

13. Mental problems - For quite a number of days The Man had been behaving oddly. Several times he had left the cave and gone out into the jungle, which more than 50,000 years later would be a peaceful countryside in Europe. Now, in these prehistoric days, The Man was greatly troubled by a strange confusion. Also there was a pain in his head that never seemed to leave him.

14. Kidneys - Folk medicine yields little in reference to kidney ailments, although there are occasional references to bladder disturb­ances, difficult urination, or conditions involving dropsy, which may be caused by kidney disease.

During the latter part of the last century, plasters shaped in the outline of the kidneys were used extensively, plastered to the back, usually in an effort to relieve a back pain that in many cases had nothing to do with a kidney ailment.

15. Allergies - Pretty Miss Isabella Royce, properly corseted and gowned for a Sunday afternoon in the garden on a warm June day in 1878, daintily touched a handkerchief to her dripping nose and glanced in despair at her young man, Harold Tendrake.

When they had come to the garden for their Sunday stroll she had been quite all right. Now her eyes were red and her nose was streaming. She was hardly an object of desire in any man's eyes.

16. Tuberculosis - In all history man's greatest enemy has been a small, hard-shelled germ called the tubercle bacillus. It causes tuber­culosis.

According to all statistical surveys and conjecture, the death toll exacted by this germ is staggering and beyond any comparison. Undoubtedly it runs into tens of millions. No catastrophies—wars, pestilences, famines—have produced anywhere near the casualty lists brought about by the tubercle bacillus.

17. Epilepsy - EPILEPSY—Probably in few other disorders has folk medi­cine been so futilely inadequate as in epilepsy.

Known since antiquity, epilepsy—which in Greek means seizure—was an enigma up until some 25 years ago. Hardly more than 200 years ago some of Europe's leading doctors said it was the work of witches. Centuries before that the sufferers of the "falling sickness" were thought to be possessed by demons.

18. To women - Listlessly, Katherine Yarney watched her husband drive away in his buggy, the summer dust from the street forming a small cloud in his wake. Behind the house, in the back yard, the children were playing Indian, shrieking in their excite­ment over the mock battle. Across the street, Mrs. Loveline came out of the house to water some flowers at the edge of the Loveline front porch. She saw Katherine and waved. After a moment she put down her sprinkling can and came across the street.

19. Proctology - Writing for 75 Years Of Medical Progress, Louis J. Hirsch-man, M.D., Founder and Emeritus Professor of Proctology, Wayne University Medical College, made the following ob­servation:

"In the mind of many laymen and a few physicians, the chief function of the proctologist is to treat hemorrhoids, or 'piles.' The disease of hemorrhoids was known and described as far back as biblical days, and is one of the commonest diseases which afflicts mankind.

20. Ears + eyes - Last September a salesman, Len McMasters, came into a West Coast television repair shop and smiled at the middle-aged proprietor behind the counter.

"Hi, Bill!" he said loudly. "Six months since I've been in town. Thought I'd better stop in!"

Bill Lanphier smiled back at the salesman.

"You can. turn down the volume," he said. "You don't need it any more."

The salesman's eyebrows went up and he glanced at Lanphier's ears. A slight puzzled frown creased his forehead.

21. Ulcers + strokes - ULCERS—Stomach ulcers were clinically described many centuries ago by physicians such as the Arab, Avicenna (903-1037). It is doubtless a fact that men have known "the pain in the stomach" that has been attributed to ulcers down through the ages.

Probably few disorders have received such wide publicity as have ulcers. Commonly associated with high-pressure exec­utives, there has been almost a tradition built up about them. They have been the subject of much research and various treatments have been used.

22. Imagine it - It is quite likely that in no other area of medicine is the layman more confused than in the area of "psychosomatic" illnesses.

A fairly young career woman, owner of a small chain of stores, angrily crushed out a cigarette and stared at her doc­tor with snapping eyes.

"If I have an ulcer, it is not of psychosomatic origin!" she said. "I'm a normal woman. Not neurotic. I don't particularly like your suggesting that I am!"

23. Foods + fads - In the latter part of the '50s a married woman of about 40 was brought to an Eastern diagnostic clinic by her husband.

Her story was brief and somewhat baffling. A number of months previously she had begun to lose some of her hair. She became extremely depressed, self-conscious, and irritable.

Soon she began to believe that her friends were deliberately attempting to embarrass her by calling attention to her hair. She stopped seeing friends, refused to go out, and no longer attended social functions.

24. Medical care - If you are a complete stranger in a community and need a doctor, you may be in one of 600 communities throughout the country where county medical societies have emergency-call systems to make certain that a fully qualified doctor is available whenever he is urgently needed. In some areas the same type of service is available for emergency dental care.

25. New world - In the various chapters of this book we have frequently touched upon the medical anticipations of the future. So far-reaching are some of these expectations that some of them will make a number of medical methods of the last few years as outdated in ten or twenty years from now, as today's medi­cine eclipses the well-intentioned but inadequate attempts of some of the old folk medicines.

Bibliography - Aaron, Harold, M.D., Good Health and Bad Medicine, New York:

Consumers Union of United States, Inc., 1940. Atkinson, D. T., M.D., Magic, Myth and Medicine, New York:

Fawcett World Library, 1958. Bauer, Louis H., M.D. (ed.) Seventy-Five Years of Medical

Progress, Philadelphia: Lea & Febiger, 1954. Beauvoir, Simone de, The Second Sex, New York: Alfred A.

Knopf, 1957. Beecher, Henry K., Disease and the Advancement of Basic Science,

THE END