Concerning Jesuit missionary activities among the Indians of North America and their medical practices there:
"The Jesuits of New France knew nothing of germs, viruses, and immunity. Though knowledgeable by the standards of their day, they lived centuries before modern science systematically classified diseases, discovered how they spread, and developed preventive and curative drugs. they brought to New France various medicines, including sugar,, widely regarded as a cure-all in the seventeenth century, and they were eager to learn about native herbal remedies as well. They also had recourse to the surgeon's art in serious cases, bleeding their colleagues or prescribing purges, treatments based on the prevalent theory that illness resulted form an excess of fluids in the body. The Jesuits did not see themselves as doctors, however. Their priority was saving souls, and when epidemics struck, they put most of their efforts into baptizing the dying rather than relieving the suffering of the living--a strategy that did not make a favorable impression on their native hosts.
As the Jesuits struggled to explain to their readers, and to themselves, the terrible epidemics that devastated the nations of North America, they tended to focus more on the ultimate question of why, rather than on the immediate question of how, disease spread. Seeing individuals and whole nations struck low, they perceived signs of God's plan to punish the wicked, test the resolution of the virtuous or simply gather souls to heaven. Since God worked through nature, explanations could be found in both religion and science, just as relief could be sought through prayer and medicine." (Greer, Allen, "The Jesuit Relations")
I see this as a continuation of the struggle between the ideal and the materialistic view of human nature. Camus says that before one can philosophize on theological causes for the problems in the world, one has to do everything one can to alleviate those problems. Pretty similar to Voltaire's Candide. I have personally been obsessed with the championing of the ideal, the power of the mind over matter, and in decrying pragmatism, but I am slowly gaining a more nuanced approach to this. I guess that is what comes with experience. I don't want to lose idealism though!
2 comments:
I know this isn't the direction you were taking this post but when I was reading the information about the Jesuits, the phrase "though knowledgeable by the standards of their day" caught my attention. It is amazing to me that the standards of their day were so low. There are findings that prove people who lived long before the Jesuits were very intelligent in the art of medicine. People knew about diseases, they new about cures for diseases, they knew about the source of disease and they new about the source of good health. These people were instructed of God. During the time of Christ and during times of righteousness prior to the time of Christ, people knew their stuff! It is not surprising that when the great apostasy took place, not just spiritual knowledge was lost, all aspects of knowledge plummeted. They really weren't very intelligent at all.
That struggle between materialism and idealism is interesting. I think the problem with most people is that it's difficult living and surviving in our society as idealists. In The Brothers Karamazov there's the part where Ivan is sharing his Grand Inquisitor story, and the Grand Inquisitor is talking to Christ and essentially tells him that there is no right or wrong, there are no ideals, there is only hunger and the alleviation of hunger. And I personally think that when we get older we become more pragmatic because we are more aware of ourselves as creatures that need to feed ourselves, and at some point our families, and there's simply no room in this capitalist world for the idealist. I never understood before why so many people would say things like "What are you going to do with that major? You're going to graduate with no marketable skills" but I think that's just what comes with more living experience. Some day you wake up and realize that the only thing you care about now is money. I don't want that to happen to me, and I hope it doesn't happen to you, Tim.
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