Abstract — Psychosurgery was developed early in human prehistory (trephination) as a need perhaps to alter aberrant behavior and treat mental illness. The “American Crowbar Case" provided an impetus to study the brain and human behavior. The frontal lobe syndrome was avidly studied. Frontal lobotomy was developed in the 1930s for the treatment of mental illness and to solve the pressing problem of overcrowding in mental institutions in an era when no other forms of effective treatment were available. Lobotomy popularized by Dr.

Dear Dr. Faria,

It will be of little avail ---- if the laws are so voluminous
that they can not be read or are so incoherent
that they can not be understood --- Or undergo
such incessant changes that no man who
knows the law today can guess what
it will be tomorrow.
The Federalist Papers.

Dr. Miguel A. Faria, Jr., who is a consultant neurosurgeon, Adjunct Professor of Medical History (1993-1996) at Mercer University School of Medicine, and editor-in-chief of the Medical Sentinel of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, has combined astute political insight with his encyclopedic knowledge of history to create this unique blend of historical perspective and political commentary, with its emphasis on the history of medicine and medical ethics.

The Hippocratic Oath, Abortion, and the U.S. Supreme Court

*This article is excerpted from the Foreword of Dr. Prioreschi's latest volume (Vol. III --- Roman Medicine) of his A History of Medicine, released this year.(1)

Dr Pellegrino, professor of Medicine and Medical Humanities at Georgetown, is joined by Dr Thomasma, Professor of Medical Ethics at Loyola in Chicago, in reviewing the post-Hippocratic era, which has shaken and even dismantled portions of the ethics of Hippocrates. Pellegrino feels there have been more changes in medical ethics in the last two decades than in its twenty-five-hundred-year history. There is serious question about whether the medical profession can ever again be united under a common set of moral commitments.

America's founding principles have been subverted and our country is on a steady course toward socialism. Our four founding principles --- the rule of law, individual rights, the guarantee of private property, and a common American identity --- are being replaced by group rights, redistribution, entitlements, and multi-culturalism, and our entire Western culture is in serious jeopardy. This is the message Hungarian-born Balint Vazsonyi, a world renowned concert pianist and historian, brings us based on his encyclopedic knowledge of the past.

Introduction

Vaccines --- Kill or Cure?

As the controversial debate over mandatory vaccine policy heats up igniting passions, it is perhaps appropriate we summarize what is known about the manifest benefits of modern vaccines, not forgetting the tremendously salutary impact on health and longevity wrought about by better living conditions, hygiene and sanitation, in general, and the introduction and subsequent widespread use of antibiotics, in particular.

Dear Editor,
In your excellent review of Robert N. Proctor's book, The Nazi War on Cancer (Medical Sentinel, November/December 2000), you postulate that the drop-off in stomach cancer in the earlier 20th Century was possibly related to better methods of meat curing and preservation.

The word hygiene comes from Hygeia, the Greek goddess of health, who was the daughter of Aesculapius, the god of medicine. Since the advent of the Industrial Revolution (c.1750-1850) and the discovery of the germ theory of disease in the second half of the nineteenth century, hygiene and sanitation have been at the forefront of the struggle against illness and disease.(1)

Since the fall of the Western Roman Empire, there have been three major bubonic plague epidemics, which afflicted large segments of the population in the continuous Eurasian landmass and North Africa. Death quickly followed the trade routes of the times. The death toll is almost incomprehensible. The Plague of Justinian (6th Century A.D.), the Black Death (14th Century A.D.), and the Bubonic Plague (1665-1666, which coincided with the Great Fire of London) caused an estimated 137 million dead in a world much more sparsely populated than it is today.

In their guidelines for resolving conflict in cases of non-beneficial or futile medical treatment, the San Francisco Bay Area Network of Ethics Committee continues the disturbing trend of medicine moving toward collectivism and the ethics of distributive justice.(1,2)

Abstract: On June 30, 1559, King Henry II of France (1519-1559), against the advice of his court ministers, participated in a fateful joust. The wooden lance of his younger opponent pierced the King's headgear, shattered into fragments, and penetrated his right orbit and temple. The King survived for 11 days following the mortal wound and was treated by two of the most distinguished physicians of the Renaissance: Ambroise Paré (1510-1590), the master surgeon, and Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564), the great anatomist.

Praised by Napoleon as "the worthiest man I ever met," Dominique-Jean Larrey (1766-1842), his legendary surgeon, was born in Beaudean, a little village in the Pyrenees. Orphaned at age 13, he was raised by his uncle, Alexis, who was chief surgeon at Toulouse. After studying and serving as his surgical apprentice for 6 years, Larrey went to Paris. There, he studied under the great French surgeon, Desault, who was Chief of Surgery at the Hotel Dieu. Unfortunately, his studies were interrupted when war came to France.

Throughout the ages, some physicians have had more than a passing interest in politics, justice, and the mechanics of government. For example, the illustrious American physician, Benjamin Rush (1745-1813), one of the fathers of American psychiatry and a highly esteemed physician in his own day, was also one of the 56 signatories of the Declaration of Independence.