THE REFORM OF THE HEALING ART



If I had pneumonia, I would rather be treated by a village doctor who would give me a cold compress and a cough medicine, with possibly digitalis thrown in, than with such polypharmacy.

While some patients are treated in hospital-factories on Ford mass production principles, there is an army of 32,000 panel doctors who fight for their daily bread, labouring hard in bitterness of soul. Two years ago an observer was sent to the waiting room of a busy panel doctor in Danzig, who “treated” 136 patients in two hours, giving each one less than one minute. Such treatment is no longer an art, it is not even a handicraft.

I have on purpose picked out a few extreme examples. I know, of course, that physicians do valuable work in hospitals and in general practice. I know, of course, that we cannot go back to the Hippocratic times when the doctor dominated the whole art of healing. Laboratories and medical mechanics are as necessary as are division of labour, railways, motor cars, electric light, etc.

However, we must regain the attitude of the great Greek physicians of antiquity. Doctors should imitate August Bier and be physicians, surgeons, gynaecologists, eye specialists, ear specialists, radiologists, homoeopaths, etc. At least that should be the doctors ideal, and the physician should always remember this ideal. He should have an open mind, desire to learn and apply criticism to his work. Men who are animated by this idea will lead the art of healing to a higher plane.

Erwin Liek
Erwin Liek (born May 13, 1878 in Löbau in West Prussia , † February 12, 1935 in Berlin ) was a German physician and publicist. In 1928 Liek founded the general medical journal Hippocrates , which was initially supported by physicians, medical historians, homeopaths, psychologists and parapsychologists, who were open to homeopathy and healthy nutrition. Liek studied from 1896 to 1902 medicine at the Universities of Freiburg, and Königsberg.
Liek wrote two books on cancer. In his 1932 volume on The Spread, Prevention, and Control of Cancer, the Danzig surgeon argued that cancer was a disease of civilization, a “cultural disease” whose incidence was on the rise. A natural way of life was the best protection: “the simpler and more natural one’s way of life, the rarer is cancer.”