Conventional medicine

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Conventional medicine , university medicine , scientific medicine and university medicine designate the medicine taught and generally recognized at universities and scientific colleges all over the world .

"Conventional medicine" was originally coined and spread as a derogatory battle term in the second half of the 19th century by representatives of homeopathy and naturopathy . The term is still in use today to distinguish healing doctrines and practices that are part of the teaching content of academic medicine from alternative medicine . “Scientifically oriented medicine” was suggested as a replacement term.

history

The term "school medicine" can be derived from the medieval name for medical training institutions (for example the Salerno School , also called Salerno Medical School , Latin Schola (medica) Salernitana ), from which the colleges (especially the universities ) are called "high schools" have developed: The term Schola medicinae , or English School of Medicine , was also used in the sense of "medical teaching or training".

Historical contexts in the 19th and early 20th centuries

Allopathy versus state medicine

Before the term “conventional medicine” came up for medicine taught at universities , the term allopathy was coined by the founder of homeopathy, Samuel Hahnemann . "Allopathy" quickly advanced to become a collective term for a wide range of conventional therapies, to which Hahnemann's healing art - but not only it - stood in opposition. In the 1831 published work Die Allöopathie. A word of warning to sick people of all kinds. Hahnemann warns against doctors and the “old school” art of medicine. Those so labeled and attacked by him felt the term "allopathy" as damaging to their reputation. Goethe's doctor Christoph Wilhelm Friedrich Hufeland suggested that instead of the “much too narrow, yes, completely wrong word allopathy”, the word “rational medicine” should always be used. Because the essential difference between the previous scientific medicine and the homeopathic medicine is "the justification for reason and reasoning". Hufeland's proposal did not succeed in the ranks of medical orthodoxy, and the term “ state medicine”, which was largely neutral in terms of value, was preferred until well into the second half of the 19th century .

Second half of the 19th century

When cellular pathology established itself in the middle of the 19th century and the centuries-old humoral pathology had to give way to scientific-analytical empirical medicine that worked with quantifying methods, and after a completely new set of methods had developed since the second third of the 19th century, the scientifically shaped direction won influence in medicine. At the same time the supporters of homeopathy, the came mesmerism , naturopathy and other medical directions to the sidelines and were visibly as quacks and charlatans defamed. In contrast to the currently much broader term naturopathy , its representatives at the time, the so-called naturopaths (a term used both for licensed physicians practicing naturopathy and medical laypersons applying naturopathic treatment to the sick), were of the opinion that knowledge of nature was only possible through the acquiring natural human instincts , not through science . The decisive factor for them in the second half of the 19th century was the “doctrine of natural instinct” developed by the Bavarian military doctor Lorenz Gleich (1798–1865). Lorenz Gleich introduced (with recourse to Christoph Wilhelm Hufeland, who was not quoted by him) not only the term natural instinct , but also that of natural medicine in general and understood it to mean “natural healing methods without medicin in sharp contrast to healing methods with medicine”. Towards the end of the 19th century, the disputes between the licensed medical profession and the legally tolerated lay healers and their controversial procedures intensified after they had been approved in some places. Resolutions were passed repeatedly at the German Doctors' Conference calling for the legislature to prohibit quacking . After the discovery of microorganisms by Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch , bacteriology came into being . Inoculants , immunization and antibodies were developed. During the 19th century, more and more hospitals were established. Within the framework of Bismarck's social laws of 1883, the new medical achievements and the therapies made possible by the welfare state were widely applied. At the same time, a far-reaching restructuring of the medical sector took place: preclinical subjects were adapted to the knowledge gained in sensory physiology . New research areas such as hygiene , nutritional physiology , pharmacology or endocrinology have been developed. Even before 1900 there was a differentiation into the medical specialties established today: orthopedics , paediatrics , dermatology , ear, nose and throat medicine , neurology , psychiatry , etc. Technical diagnostic and therapeutic inventions such as blood pressure measurement, microscopic blood diagnoses, X-ray technology, the analysis of Body excretions and electrical diagnosis prevailed in practice. Organ, nerve and vascular surgery made rapid progress. Skin grafts were carried out and wound fever was suppressed by aseptic and antiseptic measures.

In the second half of the 19th century, the term allopathy had lost much of its original sharpness due to the constant repetition. The German pathologist and prehistorian Rudolf Virchow used terms such as "scientific medicine" or "medical science" to distinguish himself from the speculative, romantic, natural-philosophical currents in medicine of the 19th century. Neither for the now firmly established homeopaths nor for the natural healing movement that was being established at the time, these terms had the necessary negative or derogatory aftertaste in order to replace the old term "allopathy" as a suitable fighting term - against the medicine mainly taught at universities.

Spread of the term conventional medicine

The German term “conventional medicine” was probably first used in 1876 by the homeopathically oriented doctor Franz Fischer (1817–1878) from Weingarten (Württemberg) in the homeopathic monthly sheets , the member newspaper of the lay association “Hahnemannia”. However, Fischer had not yet recognized its importance as a catchphrase, using it alongside terms such as "state medicine", "allopathy" and "medical science". The homeopath was in circles popularized as a combat term "medicine" in the early 1880s due to the journalistic use of Szczecin lay homeopaths Heinrich Milbrot which conventional medicine always in place as a pejorative term of allopathy used. Milbrot has been using it consistently since 1881 in the Popular Journal of Homeopathy . As a result, the term was occasionally used approvingly by representatives of the scientific directions in medicine in disputes with representatives of naturopathy . According to the medical historian Robert Jütte , around 1900 one can speak of a general spread and acceptance of the term "conventional medicine". Rudolf Virchow's essay on the new century shows that the term, which was once heavily burdened by ideology, has become a largely neutral collective term for the prevailing direction in medicine.

Use of the term by anti-Semites

In the first years of the Nazi era (1933–1945) lay physicians and non-conventional medical practitioners (naturopaths, homeopaths) initially experienced a significant appreciation, because conventional medicine prevailed among the National Socialists as "Jewish-Marxist", too strongly oriented towards social medicine and too was considered therapy-friendly. Universities and the medical profession in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s were regarded as "Jewish" by anti-Semites . In this context, anti-Semitic critics of established medicine used the battle term "Judged conventional medicine" in the 1930s to emphasize their demand for "healthy folk medicine" or the " New German Medicine ". What was meant by this was a greater importance for naturopathic approaches and procedures in medical practice. The retired journalist and elementary school teacher involved in the Bund Völkischer Europeans , Karl Weinländer , used the term “Jewish and freemasonized conventional medicine” in 1934 to criticize the fact that the academic representatives of the newly established racial studies already had and, in his opinion, valuable works on this topic rejected as "unscientific" and "not in accordance with the requirements of National Socialism". What was meant were tracts by authors like himself. As a result of this conventional medicine, young doctors lacked “experience and training in the field of race science”. Instead, according to the instructions of high-ranking Jewish-friendly racial scientists, they might unconsciously represent the world political interests of the Hebrew League on the race question.

Substitute terms

In 1998, the internist Johannes Köbberling , member of the drug commission of the German medical profession , criticized the use of the term "conventional medicine" to designate "actual medicine" as derogatory : the term could be interpreted benevolently to mean that this was medicine that was taught at universities becomes. However, Samuel Hahnemann had already used the expression "conventional medicine" to disqualify the medicine established at that time. “ School ” in this context meant a rigid, inflexible system that was stuck in fixed thought structures and incapable of innovation . Scientific medicine does not represent a closed system, but is characterized by the fact that it continuously questions itself. The term "conventional medicine" means exactly the opposite of what should be expressed. Köbberling has therefore got used to avoiding the term consistently and to speak of medicine par excellence or of scientific medicine if the delimitation to "unscientific medicine" or paramedicine is intended.

In a position paper from 2015, he and other members of the Medicines Commission came to the conclusion that it would be “excessive” to “speak of conventional medicine as 'scientific medicine'”. With and in medicine it is necessary to act “and all too often without having satisfactory (validated or even scientifically explained) therapies etc. at hand”. Rather, "scientific medicine" is an ideal that orthodox medicine is based on. This should therefore be called more correctly “scientifically oriented medicine” and thus not every single one of its representatives “and certainly not every one of its practices, but the whole undertaking with its basic orientation”.

literature

Web links

Wiktionary: Conventional medicine  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Klaus Dietrich Bock: Scientific and alternative medicine: Paradigms — Practice — Perspectives. Springer-Verlag, Berlin / Heidelberg 1993, p. 1.
  2. ↑ Wolfgang Uwe Eckart, Robert Jütte: Medical History - An Introduction. UTB-Verlag, 2007, p. 338.
  3. ↑ a b Manfred Anlauf, Lutz Hein, Hans-Werner Hense, Johannes Köbberling, Rainer Lasek, Reiner Leidl, Bettina Schöne-Seifert: Complementary and alternative medicinal therapy versus science-oriented medicine. In: GMS Ger Med Sci. 13, 2015, Doc05. doi: 10.3205 / 000209 .
  4. ^ William Rowley: Schola medicinae; or, the new universal history and school of medicine . London 1803.
  5. ^ A b Robert Jütte: Alternative medicine. In: Werner E. Gerabek , Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil , Wolfgang Wegner: Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. Walter de Gruyter , 2005, ISBN 3-11-097694-3 , p. 45 f.
  6. ↑ Samuel Hahnemann: Die Allöopathie. A word of warning to sick people of all kinds. Leipzig, 1831. In Google books .
  7. ^ Robert Jütte: History of Alternative Medicine. From folk medicine to today's unconventional therapies. CH Beck, Munich 1996, ISBN = 3-406-40495-2, pp. 18-23 ( "Quackery" versus "traditional" medicine (around 1800) ) and 32-42 ( "Kurpfuscherei" versus "conventional medicine" (1880– 1932) ).
  8. ^ Robert Jütte: History of Alternative Medicine. From folk medicine to today's unconventional therapies. Beck, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-406-40495-2 , p. 124 and more often.
  9. ^ Gundolf Keil : Vegetarian. In: Medical historical messages. Journal for the history of science and specialist prose research. Volume 34, 2015 (2016), pp. 29-68, p. 42.
  10. ^ A b c Robert Jütte: Alternative medicine. In: Werner E. Gerabek, Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil, Wolfgang Wegner: Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. Walter de Gruyter, 2005, ISBN 3-11-097694-3 , p. 46 f.
  11. ^ Helmut Zander : Anthroposophy in Germany. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2007, p. 1459 f.
  12. ^ Helmut Zander: Anthroposophy in Germany. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2007, p. 1460.
  13. ↑ Fritz D. Schroers: Fischer, Franz. In: Lexicon of German-speaking Homeopaths. Georg Thieme Verlag, 2006, ISBN 3-8304-7254-4 , p. 32. (Excerpt from Google Books)
  14. ↑ a b Christian Lucae: 2.2 On the terms “homeopathy”, “allopathy” and “conventional medicine”. In: Homeopathy at German-speaking universities: the efforts to institutionalize it from 1812 to 1945. Georg Thieme Verlag, 1998, ISBN 3-7760-1689-2 , p. 22.
  15. ↑ a b Robert Jütte: From the medical sects of the 19th century to the unconventional directions of today - remarks by a medical historian. In: Materialdienst der EZW , 10/2004 , p. 369.
  16. ^ Robert Jütte: History of Alternative Medicine. Beck, Munich 1996, p. 35.
  17. ^ Robert Jütte: History of Alternative Medicine. Beck, Munich 1996, p. 45.
  18. ↑ Saul Friedländer: The Third Reich and the Jews. CH Beck, 2007, ISBN 978-3-406-56681-3 , p. 118.
  19. ^ Caris-Petra Heidel: Naturopathy and Judaism: Medicine and Judaism. Mabuse-Verlag, 2008, p. 169, online in Google books.
  20. ↑ Wolfgang Wegner, Werner E. Gerabek, Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil: Encyclopedia of Medical History. De Gruyter, 2004, p. 855, ( online in Google books)
  21. ^ Martin Finkenberger: Weinländer, Karl. In: Wolfgang Benz: Handbook of Antisemitism. Volume 8: Supplements and Register. Walter de Gruyter, 2015, ISBN 978-3-11-037945-7 , pp. 145–146.
  22. ↑ Drugs Commission of the German Medical Association: Short biography of J. Köbberling
  23. ↑ Johannes Köbberling: The concept of science in medicine (PDF; 85 kB). In: Science in Medicine - Value and Public Presentation . (Conference of the Working Group of Scientific Medical Societies , March 6, 1998)