What happened to the Life Force?

The history of modern medicine

To understand the prevailing medical paradigm, we have to take a look at the more recent history of modern medicine. In medieval times during inquisition, the churches have widely succeeded in eradicating all ancient wisdom and knowledge that had been as abundant in the West as it was in the East. By condemning traditional values to be of "pagan origin" and therefore "of the devil's", the inquisitors of the roman church were very thorough, in eliminating anything and anybody representing or practicing anything that was not sanctioned by the papal doctrines, which of course had been declared infallible. So while most of the western ancient knowledge ended on a pile of firewood or was "surgically removed with a single stroke", the medical systems in the eastern world have been continuously applied, further improved, extended and refined, while being passed on from generation to generation.

Quacks and pathogens alike found perfect conditions to thrive in the void that was created by the inquisition's "highly successful period of purging": While millions of people died from pestilence, the charlatans became quite wealthy by selling their ineffective "cures" and "treatments" to the suffering crowd. Interestingly the eastern world never experienced such massive outbreaks of disease as happened in medieval Europe. Some early surgeons tried to develop more efficient treatments than those available from the Quacks, and especially during the uncountable battles and wars that took place in Europe between the 12th and the 18th century, methods had to be devised that could stop wounds from bleeding and that would allow to remove projectiles from inside the body. Such procedures required some means of controlling pain and as a consequence the surgeons rediscovered certain herbs from sources that had "survived" inquisition. Further knowledge and medical plants were transferred from different parts of the world, when trade relations were established. Herbs with analgetic or antiseptic properties became a valuable commodity. However, remedies in the form of powders or decoction from these herbs were difficult to handle and they had a relatively short shelf life.

To increase potency and shelf live of a particular medicine, the active principles were then extracted from the crude plant matter and it was administered as a powder, a solution or as a pill. Because this extraction and manufacturing process was time consuming and requiring big amounts of raw materials, which was not always easy to obtain in sufficient quality and quantity, early chemists were trying to synthesize such compounds and finally brought about a range of usable products. With the discovery of such chemical antiseptics, antibiotics, painkillers and anesthetics, longer and more complex operations even deep inside the body could be performed.

Prior to industrialization the manufacture of medicines was a time consuming necessity, but suddenly the necessity turned into a promising venture for entrepreneurial chemists, when processing and production of chemicals could be done in cost and time efficient fashion from the late 19th century. The entrepreneurs soon recognized an even bigger market potential for drugs that could treat different symptoms and so their newly founded pharmaceutical companies started to scale up production and perform research, file for patents and compete for market share. Thus a wide range of pharmacotherapeutic products came into existence, which were classified according to their mode of administration, their chemical properties or by the biological system which they affected. In this way pharmacotherapy became a rather complex system by itself and for the purpose of conveying it to the surgeons, it was introduced into the universities, which then also received funding from the pharmaceutical companies for conducting research and studies at their medical faculties.