A Word Edgewise
by
Mary Joe Clendenin

  So you see, I have every reason to be thankful to doctors and their science and technology. All I had to do was be available with a heart and a willingness to cooperate. The delicate, to me, procedure did not require being put to sleep. In fact, I watched the video screen as the body invasion and repair took place.  Now, with the help of numerous imported parts and pieces such as hearing aids, eyeglasses, dental bridges, a stainless steal stent, and heaven knows what else, I am almost a bionic woman-if I can just learn to use the proper controls, and not loose them. It is amazing the advances in medicine in just a few hundred years--- and most of it in our lifetime.

  In medical history, it was a huge step for men to just to accept the belief that things too small to be seen, that washing hands, could prevent many deaths. That huge step is still one that still seems unbelievable to many lay people. Another step was to realize that foods we do eat and some we don't eat create our problems. Again, we balk at acceptance. After all, we grew up on fried chicken, whole milk, and lots of butter.   History, that greatest of all teachers reveals some interesting cases of medical discoveries found in very stressful ways.

  One such case happened in February, 1536, at a settlement called Stadacona, started by the French on the Saint Lawrence River. Jacques Cartier was commander of three ships, manned by 110 persons when an epidemic broke out in the village and spread to the ships, even though the Commander had stopped all contact between his men and the people there.  "In such sort did the sickness continue and increase that there were not above three sound men in the ships, and none was able to go under hatches to draw drink for himself nor for his fellows. Sometimes we were constrained to bury some of the dead under the snow because we were not able to dig any graves for them, the ground was so frozen and we were so weak." (Eyewitness to America, edited by David Colbert.)   Commander Cartier, puzzled about the source and cure, at wit's end,, went into the settlement.

  A group of Indians were passing through the village as the Commander walked into town. One of them, called Domagaia, known by the Commander to have been sick with the disease only days before, seemed to be recovered, and was walking with the others.   Cartier stopped him and asked what had cured him. Domagaia told him of the cure: the Indians had given him the tonic made by boiling bark and leaves of a certain tree. When Cartier asked for it (he told them his faithful servant was ill, not wanting to admit how few were able), the Indians brought some, and showed him how to prepare the tonic. He was to drink it every other day and to put the dregs on his sore, swollen legs. Cartier found the tree and made more tonic.  It took only about six days to cure the crew.

  The name of the tree was not in Commander Cartier's record, but some called it the sassafras tree. Others said it was the eastern white cedar which makes a brew rich in vitamin C. Perhaps it was; and the disease might have been scurvy. Later authorities said that scurvy had been know and treated for years before that, and Cartier should have recognized it.  The Indians of the New World knew about many healing plants and exchanged information about them. Listening to nature and the people who have thrived on its bounty is still revealing secrets-and the rain forests are relatively unexplored as they are being destroyed.  What has this to do with heart surgery done without a knife? Hey, I can still read and write and think about as well as ever, for which I am very thankful to doctors and to all who have had me in their prayers-and to God who answers prayers.