Medical Saints: Cosmas and Damian in a Postmodern World Essay

In the “Surgeon as Priest,” Richard Selzer dives into the religious and scientific aspects of being a surgeon. He explores and divides the certain aspects of “healing” into five parts, each section demonstrating the different perspectives on healing (spiritually & scientifically) that eventually builds the metaphorical bridge between surgeon and priest. With the use of figurative language and other rhetorical devises, he connects each section of his essay to show his transformation from a scientific healer to a spiritual healer.

The bio-medical model of ill health has been at the forefront of western medicine since the end of the eighteenth century and grew stronger with the progress in modern science. This model underpinned the medical training of doctors. Traditionally medicine had relied on folk remedies passed down from generations and ill health was surrounded in superstition and religious lore with sin and evil spirits as the culprit and root of ill health. The emergence of scientific thinking questioned the traditional religious view of the world and is linked to the progress in medical practice and the rise of the biomedical model. Social and historical events and circumstances were an important factor in its development as explanations about disease

Although the Christian church was very involved with public health, it wasn’t the only church embracing science. In fact, medicine and public

As Beneatha describes the profound moment when she decided to become a doctor, her admirable, although childlike, determination and refusal to set limits on her future is illustrated. Beneatha says while discussing her dream, “...that was what one person could do for another, fix him up-sew up the problem, make him alright again. That was the most marvelous thing in the world...I wanted to do that. I always thought it was the one concrete thing in the world that a human being could do. Fix up the sick, you know - and make them whole again. This was truly being God…” (131). As Beneatha describes her dream with conviction, it is apparent how the decision to pursue her dream was created with faith in the practice, unconcerned with the efforts

In the time period between 1500 and 1800 there were changes in medical theory and philosophy, and while the ideas firmly established at the beginning and end of this period seem quite different on the surface, there are similarities. This is due to new theories incorporating pillars from previously accepted ideas and practices. Major points to take note of in this period are: the extent of improvement in quantity and the quality of medical care, the shifting relationship between theology and medical practice, and how the credibility of ancient medical theory changed.

Grand Canyon University. (2015). Theological anthropology and the phenomenology of disease and illness [Lecture note]. Retrieved from https://lc-ugrad1.gcu.edu/learningPlatform/user/users.html?operation=loggedIn#/learningPlatform/loudBooks/loudbooks.html?currentT

For instance, the author took the tragedy that was her illness, and transformed it into a reflecting literary piece. Additionally, Cahalan wrote this literary piece in order to receive the needed attention from the medical field, instead of simply searching for pity from others. Furthermore, doctors from around the world would not have gained the knowledge from this illness if it were not for Cahalan and her informative piece. After the completion and publication of Cahalan’s piece, a countless amount of individuals contacted the young woman, seeking further information. Cahalan would even go as far as to contact doctors for those seeking aid from the knowledgeable woman. All together, Cahalan changed the vast medical field, as well as saved countless of lives. The tragedy that Cahalan suffered through led the author to help those going through the same traumatic experience. The author helped patients receive the necessary treatment in order to prevent the same suffering the fearless woman suffered through. Essentially, if Cahalan had not encountered this massive challenge, then the woman would have not changed the medical field and saved numerous lives. Once more, this displays a theme of overcoming severe

This fine book describes an impactful disaster. It has no legends or reprobates. However, it has a wealth of guiltless enduring, and it has a good. Fadiman advocates for specialists to consider their patients' stories about their illness and to attempt to utilize a model of collaboration as opposed to compulsion. For instance, Foua disclosed to Fadiman that she felt it was essential to utilize both Western pharmaceutical and religious approach. The Hmong trust that occasionally individuals get debilitated because of something that happens to their spirit, or because they experience a malicious soul called a touch. Such diseases require otherworldly recuperating, which can be rendered less compelling by pharmaceutical. Foua felt that the specialists wouldn't give them a chance to give only a little solution since they didn't comprehend about the spirit. Had they done as such, they may have possessed the capacity to participate in the social bargain, welcoming a tvix neeb to work close by the specialists who may have possessed the capacity to persuade the family that the measure of solution endorsed was useful. Lia's previous healing facility has since effectively received comparative practices.

Among the three theories of religion, Eliade had the largest impact on my understanding of religion, more specifically, religion pertaining to sickness and health. Throughout Eliade’s perspective of religion, he defines it as, “a mythical time, that is, a primordial time, not to be found in the historical past, an original time, in the sense that it came into existence all at once, that it was not preceded by another time, because no time could exist before the appearance of the reality narrated in the myth.” (Eliade, 72) Eliade’s idea of religion pertaining to sickness was emphasized in the stressful life of Lia Lee, the uplifting experience of the African rituals, and the riveting way in which Atul Gawande deals with sickness. By addressing these ideal points, Eliade carries out the religious significance of each point individually through his interpretation of religion.

1 (Borst, Charlotte, and Kathleen Jones. "As Patients and Healers: The History of Women and Medicine." Magazine of History, September 19, 2005,

Throughout time, medical personnel intertwine science with religion to comprehend the unexplainable and the incomprehensible. The basis of medical knowledge of the ancient Greek period included observation of a disease and attributing it to religion. However, The Sacred Disease takes the first step to start to value science and rationality over religion and superstition in medicine, but there is not a definitive mark that separates science from religious beliefs. The author addresses the issue of superstition and religion within the medical world and attempts to debunk it by humanizing the religious association of the term ‘divine.’ Even through the primeval medical information during the writings of the ‘sacred disease,’ the author bases

With a staggering two millennia separating Bronislaw Malinowski and Hippocrates, one would assume these two intellectuals would have few analogous conclusions. Unbenounced to Hippocrates in the fourth century BC, his corpus’ essay “On the Sacred Disease,” would act as support to Malinowski’s anthropological study of magic amongst primitive peoples in the twentieth century entitled “Magic, Science and Religion.” Malinowski’s essay analyzes the origin of magic, the definition of science, and deciphers whether or not antediluvian societies acknowledge a distinction between magic and science. Alternatively, Hippocrates muses on the subject of epilepsy, the disease’s genesis, and why “witch-doctors” resort to supernal cures opposed to systematic medical approaches. To understand the relationship between the essays, one must first interpret the inner workings of Malinowski’s ideas before applying them to Hippocrates’ postulates in the fashion of a critical lens. Bronislaw Malinowski and Hippocrates both offer compelling ideas that distinguish magic and science as distinct entities, while Hippocrates displays knowledge that adheres to Malinowski’s anthropological observations.

As the Crimean war came around, Nightingale gathered a group of the few skilled nurses she could find and was determined to provide secular care though the British society was rooted in religion and was deep in religious conflict at that time (Meehan, 2012). Often spirituality would take a backseat to academics and professionalism when it came to training nurses (Meehan, 2012). Since that shift in priorities, spirituality is still often taking the backseat to everything else when it comes to training and patient care. After looking at how spirituality effects health care and the need for it, many places are implementing it back into their assessments while others are struggling to see the benefits.

An unnatural sempiternal in primordial age may call be peculiar as a handful of in factual as of strange perspectives in today's camaraderie. The sociological divulge is the scope on medicine at large of guild outlandish a medicament linkage. It is the hope for proletarian recoil less condition. Joseph Campbell, a mythologist, sensitive to whatever manner mythology inroad into twosome objectives, several of which is the sociological. The goals are the ones who explanations appearance to the theory and truths of benignity. Campbell's pass encircling in prompted the perfidy of the monomyth, or the saint's twelve-stage process. Round saints, in rustic Fracas of which energy-prepare oneself lifetime they are non-native, take a twelve-stage pursuit.

Marquez’s situational irony indicates the unprofessional nature of Dr. Dionisio Iguaran. Normally, people expect doctors to rely on data and scientific evidence to diagnose their patients properly. Especially in the United States, most people would not trust doctors who determine illnesses or causes of death with magical signs, in lieu of medicinal knowledge, proper training, and careful measures. Patients prefer doctors over doubtful superstitions as the ones in control of the outcome of an operation or surgery. However, Marquez implies to readers of how local doctors in Latin-American countries may perceive explaining death or illnesses with omens to laypeople as a means of avoiding confusion, since the townspeople probably lack the understanding of scientific terms, like his description of the sound of Xius’s “tears bubbling inside his heart” (37). Obviously, the heart does not carry tears, but the townsfolk may perceive his metaphorical (yet incorrect) anatomical description of Xius’s condition as literal, rather than