The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of Humanity (The Norton History of Science)

A great divide began to arise between man and nature, his own nature, due in part, ironically, to the way in which the study of human anatomy eventually came to be sanctioned by the church (see Descartes, later in this chapter). Soft tissue was removed from the physical body when human dissection was eventually permitted. Since it was not recognise

By 1932, the historian Henry E. Sigerist had noted that medicine’s systemizing impulses were “no longer concerned with man but with disease,” as Anderson and Mackay point out.

The sixth method—which was prevention rather than cure—was regulation of the diet and daily habits of life. The individual, by avoiding the things which caused illness, remained well. The ancients believed that health was the normal state of man; disease was the result of man’s disregard of the dictates of Nature.

Absent are the glib pronouncements and fuzzy circumlocutions that earlier writers had used to hide their ignorance.

The Berlin press badgered the Prussian ruler, Frederick William IV, to do something about the disaster. Finally, the public outcry forced the government to form a commission of investigation, under the direction of the Privy Councillor for Health. Rudolf Virchow’s “strongest desire” was fulfilled when he was named medical officer to the commission.