You're looking at Less Wrong's discussion board. This includes all posts, including those that haven't been promoted to the front page yet. For more information, see About Less Wrong.

Lalartu comments on Open thread, Oct. 6 - Oct. 12, 2014 - Less Wrong Discussion

6 Post author: MrMind 06 October 2014 08:16AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Article Navigation

Comments (332)
Tags: open_thread

Comments (332)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: Lalartu 07 October 2014 02:57:08PM *  10 points [-]

Historian David Wootton argues that until mid-19th century and the discovery of germ theory physicians did more >harm than good to their patients. Nowadays most people expect positive results when they go to the doctor.

This raises two questions:

1) Why, despite this, doctor was in general respected and well-paid profession?

2) What would have happened if use of statistics in medicine became widespread before germ theory. Could it lead to ban on medicine?

Comment author: fubarobfusco 08 October 2014 03:58:28PM 7 points [-]

1) Why, despite this, doctor was in general respected and well-paid profession?

The faith-healing preacher, the witch-doctor, and the traditional healer are respected professions in the cultures where they occur. The Hippocratic physician was basically the traditional healer of Western civilization. He offered interventions that might kill, might cure, and were certainly impressive.

(It's worth noting that surgery was not within the traditional province of physicians. The original Hippocratic oath forbids physicians from doing surgery since they were not trained in it.)

Powered by Reddit Powered by Reddit