Anti-vaccine movement is a present-day tragedy

Editor's Note: Welcome to Medical Economics' blog section which features contributions from members of the medical community. These blogs are an opportunity for bloggers to engage with readers about a topic that is top of mind, whether it is practice management, experiences with patients, the industry, medicine in general, or healthcare reform. The series continues with this blog by Ken Fisher, MD, who is an internist/nephrologist in Kalamazoo, Michigan, a teacher, author ("Understanding Healthcare: A Historical Perpsective") and co-founder of Michigan Chapter Free Market Medicine Association. The views expressed in these blogs are those of their respective contributors and do not represent the views of Medical Economics or UBM Medica.

 

Dr. FisherFor over a thousand years, Europe was intellectually in the doldrums, caused by the fall of the Roman Empire, plagues, wars, a lack of commerce and religious doctrine. 

In the disciplines of Astronomy and Medicine dogma reigned. Ancient Greek teaching was that the universe was based on four elements, fire, air, water, and earth, and that all heavenly bodies revolved around the earth.  In medicine, this was interpreted as our bodies being composed of blood, bile, black bile and phlegm, and sickness was the result of a loss of balance of these four elements. 

 

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The physicians’ job was to rebalance them through purges, bleeding and other means.  These views prevailed for millennia.  As an example, George Washington ill with probably epiglottitis was bled to death in 1799 as his physicians were trying to re-balance these four elements. Human anatomy for over a thousand years was taught from a text written by Galen, a Greek physician to Roman emperors whose descriptions were based on animals as Roman law prohibited human dissections.

Notice that none of these beliefs were based on observational data, but rather taken for granted as truths.  Then in the early 16^th century, trade and migration of intellectuals to the city-states of northern Italy fostered creativity and inquiry began to flourish.  Padua and other Northern Italian Universities were centers that had a monumental place in this story. 

 

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While studying to become a physician at Padua, but still keeping his interest in astronomy, was the great intellect Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543).  Although his income producing activity was as a Canon of the church, he also practiced medicine for nobility, was an economist, and poet.  But, his real love was astronomy.  He discarded the dogma of the time.  

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