The Effect of Medicine

"[If] I were asked by you what is the use or effect of medicine, which is this science of health, I should answer that medicine is of very great use in producing health, which, as you will admit, is an excellent effect." Greek philosopher Socrates (Plato 7) offered that bit of wisdom more than two millennia ago in one of Plato's Dialogues, but it is worth reminding ourselves of that simple thought today as the "science of health" faces some very serious challenges. Compassion, the cornerstone of the Hippocratic oath, seems to have been replaced in American medicine by a cold, corporate heart. This paper will examine that transition through the lens of Socrates, Plato, and other great philosophers.

The Greek view of medicine is encapsulated in Hippocrates' famous oath. "I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous" (Ouwendijk and Rednour). Doctors in health maintenance organizations (HMOs) are finding it increasingly difficult to live up to that ideal amidst corporate pressure to reduce costs.

Admittedly, HMOs and other indices of corporate medicine did not exist in Socrates' time. Yet his comments continue to reflect the core values of medicine. As he tells Critias, "[H]e who would enquire into the nature of medicine must pursue the enquiry into health and disease, and not into what is extraneous" (Plato 11). Welcome words for doct

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le poorer areas are badly underserved. Is the solution to redistribute the doctors? That may not be possible. But those areas in which there are not enough doctors can still receive proper health care via other means. Physician assistants and nurse practitioners, for example, are highly trained health care providers who can serve as gatekeepers, much like the corpsmen apply immediate aid on the battlefield before sending the wounded soldiers onto the hospital. English philosopher Francis Bacon also criticized the science of medicine in a way that still resonates today. He faulted medicine for its inability to learn from history. Yes, the science had progressed, he noted, but we still have much to learn from history. "This continuance of medicinal history I find deficient; which I understand neither to be so infinite as to extend to every common case, nor so reserved as to admit none but wonders: for many things are new in the manner, which are not new in the kind; and if men will intent to observe, they shall find much worthy to observe" (Bacon 52). In Bacon's day, postmortems were rare and superficial. He thought this a mistake. "[A]s for the footsteps of disease, and their devastations of the inward parts�they ought t

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