Kitabı oku: «The Popes and Science», sayfa 25

It might be thought that such examples of persecution were of course rather frequent in the distant centuries, and must not be taken too seriously, since they come in times before men had learned to respect one another's opinions and to realize that the assertions of an authority in science are only to be considered as worth the reasons he advances for them. Most people will be quite ready to congratulate themselves on the fact that our modern time has outlived this unfortunate state of mind, which served to hamper scientific investigation. They will probably even be quite self-complacent over the supposed fact that, ever since the study of natural science was taken up seriously at the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century, this unfortunate temper has disappeared. Those who think so, however, know nothing of the history of nineteenth century science, and especially not of nineteenth century medicine. Jenner's great discovery of the value of vaccination against small-pox came just before the nineteenth century opened. It met with the bitterest kind of opposition. This was especially the case in England. There is a doubt whether Germany did not eventually do more to bring about the recognition of the immense value of Jenner's discovery than his native England. Anyone who has read Jenner's life knows how much he was made to suffer from the bitterness of opponents' expressions with regard to him. [Footnote 46] It is true that he was eventually rewarded quite liberally, and that honors were showered upon him, but only after a preliminary series of trials that must have made him regret, if possible, that he had ever devoted himself to the propaganda of a great truth. Nor did the dawn of the vaunted nineteenth century bring in a better state of affairs in this regard.

[Footnote 46: See my sketch of his life in Makers of Modern Medicine. Fordham University Press, N. Y., 1907.]

It might perhaps be thought that this almost constant tendency to oppose new developments in science was not recognized for what it really is, the ultra-conservatism of human nature as men grow older, until comparatively modern times. Anyone who knows some of the intimate details of the history of medicine is sure to be better informed in this matter, and to be well aware that, like Harvey, most discoverers in medicine anticipated this opposition. Usually they have had no experience of it before, but they realize from the way men think around them, and very probably also from their own prompt reaction of opposition to whatever is novel, that men are sure to be ready to oppose the introduction of whatever is new. One of the quietest, gentlest and most lovable characters among the geniuses in medicine was Auenbrugger, who, in Vienna, about 150 years ago, discovered the method of percussion of the chest, which is so helpful in the diagnosis of chest diseases. He perfected his discovery when he was a young man of about 25. He did not publish it until he was nearly 40 years of age. Like Harvey, he waited nearly a score of years before giving it to the world. The reason for the delay is given in the preface in the following words:

"I foresee very well that I shall encounter no little opposition to my views, and I put my invention before the public with that anticipation. I realize, however, that envy and blame and even hatred and calumny have never failed to come to men who have illuminated art or science by their discoveries or have added to their perfection. I expect to have to submit to this danger myself, but I think that no one will be able to call any of my observations to account. I have written only what I have myself learned by personal observation over and over again, and what my senses have taught me during long hours of work and toil. I have never permitted myself to add or subtract anything from my observations because of the seductions of preconceived theory."

Nearly fifty years after the publication of Auenbrugger's book, Laennec completed the development of the diagnostic methods necessary for the differentiation of chest diseases by the discovery of auscultation. His was the greatest work ever done in clinical medicine. The solution of the meaning of the multitude of sounds that can be heard in the human chest required a genius for observation, and almost infinite patience. Laennec spent twelve years at the task, and then published his books on the subject. Practically nothing of importance has been added to his methods and results in the more than three-quarters of a century of active attention that has been given to medicine since that time. Laennec did not expect that his discovery would be taken up by his contemporaries. He even refers to the cool reception which had been given to Auenbrugger's work, and deprecates the fact that a man who had done so much for mankind should have met with such neglect and lack of appreciation, and even the contempt of his colleagues in medicine, who could not bring themselves to think that his method of "drumming on the chest," as they called it, could ever mean much for the recognition of disease. [Footnote 47]

[Footnote 47: Makers of Modern Medicine, by James J. Walsh, M.D., Ph.D., LL.D. Fordham University Press, New York, 1907.]

In the preface of his book Laennec, like Auenbrugger, prophesies that his work will not receive the attention that it deserves, and attempts to lessen the effect of the derision that will be meted out to it by calmly stating his expectation of it. It is curious that both of these men, one of them a German and the other a Frenchman, one of them a rather stolid Styrian, the other of the lively Celtic nature of the Bretons, should in turn have realized, at a distance of a thousand miles and more than half a century from one another, just what the attitude of the men of science was to be toward their discoveries, even though those are of a kind that were eventually to be hailed as among the most important steps in medical progress ever made. Certain words of Laennec's preface are an echo of Auenbrugger's expressions. He said:

"For our generation is not inquisitive as to what is being accomplished by its sons. Claims of new discoveries made by contemporaries are likely, for the most part, to be met by smiles and mocking remarks. It is always easier to condemn than to test by actual experience."

Many people are accustomed to think that, after the spirit that came into the world with the French Revolution, men were less prone to listen to authority or cling to old-fashioned notions, and that liberalism of mind is to be found written large on many pages of nineteenth century scientific history. One of the great scientists of the first part of the last century was Dr. Thomas Young, to whom we owe so much with regard to the theory of light waves and the existence of the ether to carry them. Men absolutely refused to listen to this idea at all at the beginning, though now it is the groundwork of most of our thinking and of nearly all of our mathematical demonstrations with regard to the movement of light. They not only refused, however, but they expressed their scorn of the man who invented such a cumbrous theory. Dr. George M. Gould, in one of the volumes of his Biographic Clinics, has told the story of Dr. Young's career, and I prefer to present it in his words rather than my own.

"A practicing physician, Young, as early as 1801, hit upon the true theory of the luminiferous ether, and of light and color, which nearly a century before had been discovered by Robert Hooke. But his scientific contemporaries would not see it, and to avoid persecution and deprivation of practice, Dr. Young was compelled to publish his grand discoveries and papers anonymously. Published finally by the Royal Society (one can imagine the editor's smile of superior wisdom over such trash), they were as utterly ignored as were those of Mitchell, Thompson and Martin as to eyestrain, two or three generations later. Arago finally championed Dr. Young's theory in the French Academy, but the leaders, LaPlace, Poissin, Biot, etc., denounced and conquered, and not until 1823 would the Academy allow the publication of Fresnel's papers on the subject; in about twenty-five years the silencers were themselves silenced. But Young had been silenced too; his disgust was so great that he resigned from the Royal Society, and devoted himself to his poor medical practice and to deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphics." (In which, by the way, as might be expected I suppose, he made a distinguished name for himself.)

Many another important medical discoverer in the nineteenth century found the truth of Auenbrugger's and Laennec's expressions, and met the fate of Jenner and Young. Next to vaccination for small-pox, probably the most important advance in nineteenth century medicine was the discovery of the cause of puerperal fever, and the consequent diminution of the death-rate from that very fatal disease. At one time in the nineteenth century, it was much more dangerous for a woman to have a child in a lying-in hospital in Europe than to go through an attack of typhoid fever. The death-rate was at least 10 per cent. When it was reduced to five per cent, the hospital authorities felt quite self-complacent about it. Shortly after the beginning of the second quarter of the nineteenth century, there began to come glimmerings of the real cause of the affection. It was not due to something from within the patient, but was caused by a materies morbi introduced from without. Usually the physician in attendance was responsible for the introduction of it. He came to these patients after contact with septic cases of various kinds improperly cleansed. The consequence was that he infected them, and puerperal fever was contracted.

It would seem as though the medical profession would be very ready and willing to test any such simple explanation of the origin of a serious disease, and if possible secure its diminution. On the contrary, the old men proved to be so wedded to the notion that the physician could not possibly be the cause of this serious condition, that they were very bitter in their denunciation of those who tried to introduce the new idea. One distinguished old professor of midwifery declared very superciliously that, of course, it was a very charming thing for a young poet to insist on the notion that these serious diseases were not associated necessarily with the beautiful function of maternity itself, but were extraneous factors quite apart from it; but there was no doubt, he declared, that the affection came from within, all the same, and that the youthful poet's idea was only a pleasant fiction. The poet in the case was Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, and, needless to say now, though he was laboring under the heinous crime of being a young man, and did indulge in occasional poetry, he was entirely in the right, and the distinguished old professor entirely in the wrong. No little denunciation was heaped upon the devoted head of Holmes, however, for his strenuous humanitarian work with regard to this subject. It cost Holmes some of his medical friends and not a little practice for some time. Even in America, then the land of the free, there was a strong conservatism that made the introduction of new ideas a very difficult and almost a dangerous thing.

The man who worked out the same idea to a practical effect in Europe met with even more determined opposition than did our own Dr. Holmes. I refer, of course, to Semmelweiss, who, while teaching obstetrics in Vienna, realized that it was the students and doctors engaged in pathological work at the same time that they were taking out their courses in obstetrics, who caused the havoc among the patients in his (obstetrical) department in the hospital. The death-rate in the hands of these obstetrical attendants, who came directly to the lying-in department from their work in pathology, was sometimes as high as one in five. Semmelweiss insisted that this state of affairs must cease, and that while the students were doing the pathological work they must not be allowed to attend obstetrical cases. This at once raised a storm of opposition in the university. Poor Semmelweiss lost his position as a consequence of it. In the midst of the rancorous discussion that followed, Semmelweiss lost his reason also for a time, and had to be cared for in an insane asylum. It is well recognized that his beneficent discovery was for him the cause of many years of unhappiness.

Nor must it be thought that it is only with regard to medical discoveries that such opposition–bitter, personal, rancorous and persecutory–can be aroused. While it might be thought that the great minds in the ordinary natural sciences would have no reason for the personal element which more or less necessarily enters into medical discussion because men had been applying for gain the notions that now are proved to be incorrect, and their reputations have been made on such applications, to think that all was placid and quiet in the physical sciences would be a serious mistake. Long ago Virgil asked in a famous line, "Is it possible that there can be such great wrath in divine minds?"–"tantaene animae celestibus irae"–and we might be tempted to ask, can there be such foolish intolerance on the part of scientific teachers? but the answer would be the same in each case. Virgil found that the gods were very human in this respect, and anyone who knows the history of science knows the scientists are like the pagan dieties, when their conservative spirit is aroused, and when they are up in arms, as they fondly think, to protect their beloved science from foolish innovators.

A typical example of the sort of opposition which a modern discoverer in science meets with is to be found in the life of Ohm, after whom, because of his discovery of the law of electrical resistance, the unit of resistance is called. When he made his discovery Ohm was working in the Gymnasium at Cologne. The leading physicists of the day could not bring themselves to believe that this comparatively young man–he was scarcely forty at the time–could have made a discovery that went far beyond their knowledge. His paper on the subject was discussed rather coldly and without any recognition of the far-reaching significance of the work that he had accomplished. A distinguished representative of the University of Berlin criticised it severely. As the law was advanced on mathematical as well as experimental grounds, the opinion of the university authorities at Berlin was looked upon as extremely important, since at the time mathematics was the forte there. The minister of education took his cue from the authorities at Berlin. Ohm and his friends urged his appointment to a university position. This was not only refused, but was rejected in such terms that Ohm offered his resignation as a teacher. His resignation was accepted with regrets by the ministry, but with a distinct expression that Ohm must not expect other than a gymnasium position. The consequence of this misunderstanding was that other teaching institutions in Germany would not give him a place on their staff, because of the danger of misunderstanding with the ministry of education. Ohm had to accept a private tutorship in mathematics in Berlin and a few hours of teaching in a military school, for which he was paid three hundred thalers a year. This would be something over $200 in our money, though money was worth, in buying power, probably two or three times as much as it is at the present time. Six precious years of Ohm's life, at the very acme of his powers as an investigator, were thus spent away from the larger educational institutions and their opportunities for research, because men would not accept the great discovery that he had made, and could not be brought to understand that a genius might come along to revolutionize all their thinking, though he did his work from an obscure position, and practically attracted no attention before he found this wonderful clue to the maze of electrical science, which meant so much for the elucidation of difficulties hitherto insoluble.

Always men find some excuse other than their own unwillingness to confess that they were wrong. It is to this that they object, and not the acceptance of the new truth. In the course of writing the biographies of the Makers of Modern Medicine, published last year, and the Makers of Electricity, which is now preparing for the press, one fact proved to be very striking. It is that discoverers of really great truths are practically always what we would call young men, and what older men are apt to think of as scarcely more than mere boys. Such men as Morgagni, the Father of Pathology; Laennec, the Father of Pulmonary Diagnosis; Stokes, who taught us so much about the lungs; and Corrigan, who laid the foundation of exact knowledge in heart diseases,–were under twenty-five when they made their primal discovery, and some of them scarcely more than twenty. Vesalius published his great work on anatomy when he was not yet thirty, and Stensen did his best work under twenty-five. When such men attempt to teach their elders, of course they are properly put in their places by their elders, and this often includes a good deal of bitter satire and discouragement. It is the eternal conflict between youth and age that constitutes the main reason for opposition to progress in any form of knowledge, for youth will be progressive and age will be conservative. Unfortunately age often dissembles the reasons for its opposition even to itself, and religion and common sense and supposedly established principles of science are all appealed to as contradicted by the new doctrine introduced by young men, the truth of which their elders cannot see.

Nor must it be thought that the second half of the nineteenth century was free from this tendency to persecute those who made advances in medicine. There is probably no form of treatment which, in the minds of those who know most about the disease, that has done more to save awful suffering in mankind than the Pasteur treatment for rabies. Anyone who knows anything about the history of the introduction of that treatment will not be likely to forget how much of pain and suffering the discovery and introduction of it cost its author. Nothing too bitter could be said by the medical profession of Germany for many years after the treatment was first broached. One of the most distinguished of German medical discoverers in the nineteenth century said, in a very climax of satire, "that the distinguished Frenchman deserved to be well known as one who treated diseases of which he knew nothing by remedies of which he knew less." His good faith was impugned, his statistics scorned, his results laughed at, even his friends hesitated to say anything on the subject. Those who were close to Pasteur know that he suffered, for his nature was of the most sensitive, veritable torment because of this bitter opposition, which at one time, because his French colleagues also were sceptical of his treatment, threatened to impair the usefulness of our greatest discoverer in nineteenth century medicine and leave him without that support which would enable him to go on with his precious investigation.

The more recent furore against antitoxin is still in many persons' minds. Physicians who used it, and in whose cases serious results took place, not the consequence of the antitoxin, but the consequence of factors of the disease over which they had no control, sometimes suffered seriously in their practice. All forms of opposition were aroused against it. Even at the present time one still hears of the crime, as some do not hesitate to call it, of injecting the serum of a diseased animal into the veins of the human being, and above all a little child. There are men (intelligent men!) who do not stop short of tracing all sorts of disease incidents that happen after such an injection, even many years later, to the evil effects of the horse serum employed. Such people are exercising that superstitious fanatic faculty which at all times has caused the obstinately conservative to seek and find the most serious objections to any new doctrine, careless of the consequences that they might bring on the discoverer or the benefit they might prevent for the mass of humanity.

Originally vaccination was opposed by certain clergymen on the grounds of theological objection to its use. At the present time most of such objection has ceased, It is still clergymen, however, who are the most prominent among the anti-vaccinationists, though now they usually find biological and pathological, instead of theological reasons. They proclaim it a crime against nature, from the biological standpoint, that the disease of an animal should be conveyed to man, even for protective purposes. At the present time one can find just as bitter objections to vaccination in anti-vaccination journals as when the subject was first brought under discussion. Men must find some reason for their opposition, and they take the weapon that is handiest and that they are able to use with best effect. In an era when theological ideas were dominant, theology was ready at hand for this purpose, but any other ology will do just as well, and the history of science, even in the present day, will show that always some ology, regardless of human feelings, is used quite as ruthlessly and as cruelly as in the olden days. There are tortures of spirit that are worse than prison or even fire.

When we recall how few examples there are of opposition to science on the part of ecclesiastics, and how most of these prove on careful examination to be due to misunderstandings rather than to actual desire to prevent the development of science, the stories of the way in which discoveries in science were received in more modern times become a striking lesson that makes us appreciate the broad-mindedness and liberal policy of ecclesiastical educators in the olden time. They were evidently much more ready to accept novel ideas, and much less prone to set themselves up in opposition to them, than the educational authorities of more modern times. This is the phase of the history of education in the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries that deserves the most careful study, and that should make modern educators feel proud of their kinship with these old founders and patrons in education, who at the same time furnish an example of liberality of mind that it would be very beneficial to have in our modern supposedly free universities.

For while we are prone to be proud of our academic freedom, we have had more than one example in recent times of how dangerous it is for a man, even though he may be recognized as an authority in his department, to treat certain economic questions from a standpoint that is not favored by the rest of the faculty, or by the Board of Governors, or, above all, by certain munificent patrons of the particular educational institution. Much has been said about religious educational institutions, about the middle of the nineteenth century, so hampering the work of men in the physical sciences, especially with regard to problems in geology and evolution, as to nullify progress. Just this same thing, however, is true with regard to many economic questions, because of the attitude of educational interests with regard to free trade and protection, single tax, and socialism and the like. No professor of science at a religious institution ever felt himself more in the grip of old-fashioned notions than do certain professors in departments of finance and sociology with regard to problems that are now of the most profound interest. Men have changed the reason for their conservatism, but the conservatism itself remains, and apparently always will remain. This is what must be realized when the stories of ecclesiastical opposition to progress are told.